Ed Justice
by The Mauve Lantern
Summary: ED JUSTICE! a.k.a. Not Another "Eds with superpowers" Story! Crazy things are happening in the cul-de-sac, and the kids are all that stand against the growing tide of evil! Reviews are appreciated, flames will be doused.
1. Chapter 1: Element E

Disclaimer: I do not own the Ed, Edd n' Eddy characters. Danny Antonucci owns them. I don't.

**Ed Justice**

A fan-fiction by The Mauve Lantern

**Chapter 1: Element E**

The town of Peach Creek. A small, peaceful town that doesn't have much to it, just the basics of a small town: an elementary school, middle school, and high school; a couple banks, one large hospital and small shops of all sorts; a junkyard, a trailer park, and a cozy little suburb, home to several children. Yes, it's a small town, but everything is going to change today, June 1st, 2008.

"Man, could a day go by any slower?!" shouted a small boy. He was small for his age, but what he lacked in height he made up for in wits. He had short, black hair, with three large strands that stuck out on top, and a yellow shirt that had a red stripe going up the side and a purple collar on top. His jeans were baggy, and had a chain on the right side, and a pair of red Chuck Taylor's adorned his feet. He was Eddy O'Brian, and he was the leader of a group of boys dubbed "The Eds". "I almost passed out from the boredom!"

A fairly tall boy replied, "How would that be any different from normal, Eddy?" He wore a black hat that completely covered his scalp, save for three wisps of hair that stuck out of the back. He had on a baggy orange shirt and a pair of purple shorts, with long red socks on his legs, and a pair of blue sneakers. His name was Eddward "Edd" Mardon, and he was the brains of the group. "You fall asleep almost every day; it'll be a miracle if you aren't held back!"

"I like holding stuff, Double D!"

"That's nice, Ed."

Ed Mason was the tallest boy in the group, and the dumbest of the bunch. Some say he had been dropped on his head as a baby, others say he watched too many stupid cartoons; no one knows for sure. He wore a baggy green jacket, a red and white striped t-shirt, and very baggy jeans. He had two giant black shoes on his feet, and both were untied. His red hair was very short, and very dirty; one might even wonder if it was red at all! "I think, therefore, I am, Double D!"

Eddy turned to Ed and said, "Shut up, Ed! I'm gonna tell you guys why I wanted the day ta end so badly!"

"Why, pray tell?" asked Edd.

"'Cause my brother sent me a rare, one-of-a-kind JAWBREAKER in the MAIL, that's why!"

"Ooh, goody-goody!" Ed said, barely containing his excitement.

Eddy jumped into the air, and said, "Now let's quit yappin' and get ta my house!" The boys ran as fast as they could, acting as though that candy was life-giving water. Now, understand that jawbreakers are not just regular candy, oh no. They are orbs of sweetness, wrapped around several layers of yummy, all of which covers a core of pure delicious. The Eds have tried time and again to acquire jawbreakers, but they almost always lose their money or the candy at the last second. Sad, isn't it?

Ed, Edd, and Eddy ran straight into the house, almost forgetting to open the door. They ran into the kitchen, where, sitting on the counter, was the yummiest, tastiest, most delicious treat in the world. "FREE JAWBREAKER!" the boys shouted, each of them gazing at it in wonder. It was perfectly smooth, and didn't have the bumps and ridges that a regular jawbreaker had. It was yellow on one side, purple on the other, with a dividing line running down the middle. Eddy turned to his friends and said, "Don't worry fellas; I'll let ya know how it tastes!"

"CHOMP!"

"What th-?! ED!" Ed stood before Eddy and Edd with a massive bulge in his cheek and a blank spot on the counter where the jawbreaker had just been.

"Ooops, sorry Eddy! My bad!" Ed swallowed the jawbreaker, and looked at his friends, saying, "It looked so yum-yummy that I couldn't help myself!"

"GIVE ME MY JAWBREAKER!"

"Ed, for Pete's sake, can't you control your appetite?!"

Ed ran away from his capped friend, and shouted, "No can do, Double D! Mister Tummy needs food!"

"Yeah?! Well I'll give him a knuckle sandwich! COME HERE, YOU!" Eddy screamed as he chased his dim-witted pal.

Eddward sighed, and said, "Must we do this every day?"

"YESSIREE, DOUBLE D!"

_***_

_Later that night…_

The boy called Ed tossed and turned in his sleep, dreaming of epic battles with mutant mole-men from Babylon 4; he was completely unsuspecting of the changes that were happening to his body at that moment. His body started shimmering and shaking, quivering like a bowl full of jello. His skin was puffing up, then deflating; his body elongated, and then returned to normal. The red hair on Ed's head grew out into curly locks, only to evaporate into a mist above his head. The most bizarre part had not even begun.

His body shook with one final tremor, and then collapsed onto the bed, still and motionless, save for his breathing and noises he was making as he combated his dream-enemies. Suddenly, the skin on Ed's face began to change as a purple pigment started to spread onto the left side of his body, and gold spread to the other. The colors completely covered his head and neck, and made their way down his arms to the fingertips. Even his legs underwent the metamorphosis, the color scheme remaining the same. Finally, it stopped, and Ed was left in his colored state, sprawled on his bed in only his underwear and a dingy tank top.

_***_

_The next morning…_

The sound of a thunderous "EEEDDD!" shook the Mason household, as Ed's baby sister broke down the door to her brother's room. "ED! Get up! Mom says you have to take me over to Jimmy's house!" Despite her screaming, there was no movement.

"Oh, Eeeeedddd…wake up big brother…"

Still no movement.

"ED! GET UP RIGHT NOW OR I'M TELLING MOM!"

Ed was not getting up. Sarah was furious, for lack of a better word: usually Ed would leap into action if Sarah so much as mentioned the name 'Mom'. She stomped over to the covers, yanked off the covers and started to say, "EEE-" but stopped when she saw her brother's new skin condition. She stared at him, and grumbled, "That dummy must've painted himself in his sleep again." Seeing as Ed wasn't going to wake up anytime soon, Sarah said, "Ahh, who needs ya?!" made her way to the door and slammed it with all her might.

Just as she slammed the door, two familiar figures climbed in through Ed's window. "I told ya sock head, I don't wanna see that numbskull today; he took my jawbreaker!"

"Eddy, I realize this, given that you've told me a thousand times since yesterday, but this is Ed we're talking about. He simply acted on impulse: he saw the jawbreaker, and went for it. You would too, if you had been in Ed's shoes! And that's why you need to apologize to him for tying his neck into a knot."

Eddy grumbled to himself, and replied, "Yeah, yeah. Hey, what's up with Lumpy?! Did he paint himself in his sleep again?!"

Edd gasped, and said, "Oh dear! Ed, wake up!"

Ed groggily rose up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and, upon seeing his two bestest friends in the whole world, shouted, "EDDY! DOUBLE D!" He reached out with his big arms and pulled them into a hug. "I am happy as a clam to see my bestest chums here to visit!"

Eddy struggled against the hug, saying, "Yeah, yeah, we get it Lumpy! Now let us go before ya choke us!" As he pushed away from Ed's body, he suddenly felt sand all over his back. Eddy turned his head to the left to find that Ed's arm had turned into sand! "AAAAAHHH!" he screamed, then turned to Edd and shouted, "Double D, what's going on?!" It was then that he noticed his friend was being held by an arm made of brick; he also looked like he couldn't breathe. "ED! PUT US DOWN!"

"Roger that, Eddy!" and he dropped the two boys on the ground.

Edd gasped for air, and marveled at Ed, wheezing out, "E-Ed, wh-'wheeze'-what was that?!"

"What was what, Double D?"

"That thing you did with your arms, you idiot! Your arms turned to sand and stone!" shouted Eddy.

"Huh?" Ed looked at his arms, and screamed, "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" and started running around the room, his body going through changes as he ran. First his leg turned into pure iron, which left dents wherever he stepped. Then, his head burst into flames, scaring him even more. His legs turned to blue water, and started to flood the room.

Edd screamed, "ED STOP!" and he did.

The dim-witted Ed grabbed onto his genius friend, and shouted, "WHAT"S HAPPENING TO ME, DOUBLE D?! I LOOK LIKE THE MATTER-MAKER MAN FROM 'FINAL SECERET INVASION CRISIS: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT'!"

The kind-hearted Edd took his friend's hand, patted it, and said, "There, there, it's okay Ed. We're going to find out what caused you to get this way, Eddy and I!"

Eddy said, "Wadda ya mean 'we're'?! I don't know anything about science!"

"I'll just need you to keep Ed calm while I run my tests, all right Eddy?"

"All right, as long as I don't have to touch him. Who knows where he's been?!"

"I have been right here, Eddy, snug as a bug on a rug."

"Shut up, lumpy, and get some clothes on. No one can see ya while you're like this, okay?"

"But why, Eddy?" asked Edd.

'Because, Sock head: it'll be the end of him, it'll be the end of you, it'll be the end of me; but worst of all, it'll be the end of me!"

Edd sighed and said, "Well, you are right Eddy. Ed _does_ need to cover himself up when he goes out there." He turned to Ed and asked, "Ed, where do you keep your winter clothing?"

Ed grinned a goofy grin and replied, "My mom hides them where I can't find 'em, Double D!"

"Great, how're we supposed to get to your house, Double D?" said a frustrated Eddy.

Edd thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers and said, "I've got it! Eddy, you remember that time we tried to get Ed out of being grounded?"

"Yeah, I'm still doing chores for that!"

"Well, remember how we got in through the pipes by warping the concrete?"

Eddy's eyes lit up and he shouted, "You're a GENIUS, Double D! Ed, get that broken umbrella of yours; we're getting' outta here!"

Ed gave Eddy the Urban Ranger salute and said, "Roger, Eddy!"

_***_

_One journey through the Peach Creek sewer system later…_

The boys squeezed themselves through the pipe that led into Edd's basement, or rather, Edd and Eddy squeezed in, Ed turned his body into water and gushed into the room like a geyser. Edd shouted, "Ed! Put yourself back together!"

"Aw, sorry Double D!" The mass of water shifted back into Ed, and left not a drop anywhere in the room.

The brainy boy smiled and said, "Thank you, Ed." He turned and headed towards the closet in the basement. "Now, gentlemen," he said as he walked, "I am going to run a few tests on Ed, just to see what has become of his body."

"Whoa whoa whoa, tests?!" said Eddy. "Y'mean, like stick a needle in his arm 'tests'?!"

"I will need a sample, Eddy, and a blood sample would be the best way to determine what has happened to our poor friend Ed." Edd looked over at his friend, with concern written all over his face as Ed stood their sticking his finger through one ear and out the other.

Eddy blinked and replied, "Yeah, cuz he's _really _suffering…"

"Eddy, please show some compassion; Ed might be breaking down on the inside!"

"Smell my feet, smell my feet…"

Eddy stared at his large, brain-dead friend, grumbled and said, "Whatever, let's just get this over with."

Edd walked over to Ed with a small syringe, and said, "Now, Ed, this will only hurt for a second…" He wiped a spot on Ed's arm off, and inserted the needle, extracting a small amount of blood. The young genius stared at the syringe, and whispered, "Oh my…how peculiar!"

"Whoa, check that out!"

"Coool! It is like the mutant apple cider the heroes had to drink in 'I Was A Teenage Hillbilly, The Miniseries!'" 'Mutant' was a good way to describe the blood, which was changing its color every second. First it was brown, then light blue, and now it was teal green. It didn't get much more mutant than that!

"Hmm…I'll have to run this under the microscope," said Double D, "before we can conclude anything. Ed, would you go wait in that containment chamber over there?"

"Okey-dokey, Double D!" Ed shouted as he ran into the chamber.

Edd took the blood sample, placed the blood on a small sheet of glass, and stuck it under the powerful lens of his microscope. "With my high-power microscope, we should be able to see any anomalies in Ed's body!"

"In English, Sock head!"

"We'll find out why Ed is gold and purple, and why he turned into sand, brick and water, Eddy." Edd flipped the switches of the microscope on, and magnified the lenses till he could see every cell, every molecule, and even the atoms. He stared at the sample and immediately noticed something. "EDDY, COME HERE!"

"What, what is it?!"

"Look at this, Eddy; just look at it!" Eddy stared through the lens of the microscope, and noticed the same thing Edd had seen: there were all kinds of strange shapes in Ed's body, and lots of them were different colored than regular blood cells.

"Woah, _that's _in Ed's blood?! That doesn't look a thing like blood!" Eddy said, confused and more than a little frightened. What the heck was up with his friend?!

Edd said, "Pardon me, Eddy; I have to get something from my room." He scurried out of the basement, leaving Eddy all alone with Ed. He stared at the chamber Ed was in, where he was currently smacking himself up against the glass.

Eddy went over and said, "So, Ed, what else can ya do?"

Ed put his finger to his chin, and said, "Hmmmmmmm…" and stood there with a far-off look in his eyes.

Eddy grew frustrated with his large friend, and shouted, "Sometime this century, Ed!"

"Okey-dokey, Eddy!" Ed flailed his right arm about, and the entire arm became a tentacle of fire; he did the same thing to the left, and it became a swirling tentacle. Laughing hysterically, Ed bounced into the air, and his legs joined together and changed into a metal spring; the dim-witted boy continued bouncing until he hit his head, which changed into water as it smacked the ceiling.

Now it was Eddy's turn to laugh uncontrollably, as he fell to the ground and clenched his gut. "AHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, Lumpy that was great! Do it again, do it again!"

"Oh, very well; here goes something!" For his next trick, Ed's torso changed into gas, where he proceeded to poke holes in himself with his finger. "Eddy, look!" he shouted, "I look like Sheldon, my lucky piece of cheese!"

"That is the best, Ed!"

"AHEM!" Eddy and Ed looked over to see that Edd had returned, and carried two large books with him. "If you two are done playing around, I believe I have found something that might help us understand Ed's predicament." He showed the cover of one book to his friends: 'The World of Molecules and You, by John Osterman'.

"What the heck are we gonna get out of a book?!" Eddy said with disgust. He was never one for reading; the pint-sized Ed only needed the pictures.

"Patience, Eddy. Now, fellows, look here," Edd flipped through the pages until he came upon a picture of mercury molecules. "Eddy, we saw these exact same molecules floating around in Ed's blood sample! Not only that, but if you look through this book, you should be able to recognize a few of them from that sample. Here, take a look for yourself."

Edd handed the book to Eddy, who began flipping through the pages; true to what his friend told him, most of these had been in that drop of blood. Eddy slammed the book shut, and said, "So what the heck does this mean, Double D? Is Ed, like, a living period table now?"

"First off Eddy, it's 'periodic table'; secondly, I am not sure. I had some doubts, until I saw Ed changing into fire, water and smoke just now; that clinched it. Now, the only thing left to check is this: Ed, could you describe the jawbreaker you ate yesterday?"

Ed stared off into space until Edd brought him back to reality with a few snaps of the fingers. The simple boy smiled and said, "Hiya, guys!"

Eddward rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers while Eddy smacked his forehead. They looked at each other, and thought, "Yeah, Ed's fine."

Edd coughed, and said, "Ed, could you describe the jawbreaker you ate yesterday?"

Grinning stupidly, Ed replied, "Sure thing, Double D. It was so sweet and delicious, with its two different sides, I thought it had to be the crystal ball of the Dragon from the planet Keman, but then why would it be in Eddy's kitchen. So, wanting to taste the flavor of the-ul-ti-mate jawbreaker, Ed swooped in with his mouth of justice and devoured the sweet and delicious morsel. Before I knew it, I had swallowed the whole thing. And that's all I have to say about that!"

Double D began leafing through the pages of the other book, and asked Ed, "Ed, what colors was the jawbreaker?"

"It was gold like Rolf's corn and purple like a sack of potatoes."

After a few seconds of skimming, Edd said, "AHA! I've found it!"

"What didja find, Double D?"

Edd held the book to Eddy's face, and asked Eddy, "Does this look familiar to you, Eddy?" On the page where the brainy boy's finger was, was a picture of the ultimate jawbreaker. Eddy began drooling at the sight of it, only to notice something right above the picture. It was a caption that read, "THE ORB OF RA".

Eddy was suddenly confused: he had seen that jawbreaker arrive at his house this morning; the UPS guy had said it was 'overnight shipping'. Why was it so important for his brother to get this jawbreaker to him overnight? Was it even a jawbreaker? But first and foremost came the most burning question in Eddy's mind:

"Who the heck is Ra, and what the heck was he doin' with my jawbreaker?!"

"Eddy, Ra is not a 'person', per se," Edd started to say, "But rather, he is an Egyptian deity. I read through this article, and look at what it says about the orb:

_The Orb of Ra is an ancient Egyptian relic, buried under one of the pyramids. It was discovered in 1965 when a team of archaeologists accidently fell into the chamber that held the orb. According to the hieroglyphics that were on the pedestal that held the orb, the orb was a tool that had been used by a dark and powerful magician to terrorize the land, until the Prince Khufu and his trusted allies Nabu and Teth-Adam defeated the magi. The orb, along with all other weapons of power that Khufu won in battle, was buried with him in his pyramid; anyone who took the orb would be cursed by its powerful magic. The group did not believe in the curse, until months after returning home and bringing the orb with them, all members of the party were affected with radiation poisoning. The orb was kept hidden away, in a containment center, where its harmful radiation could not seep out._

"You see, Eddy: that was no mere jawbreaker that Ed swallowed; it was, in fact, an orb with enough radiation to rival a power plant!" They both turned to Ed, who was now running around screaming his ears off after he had turned his left hand into wood, his right hand into a knife, and tried to carve his name in his hand.

"So, what do we do with Elemento over here?!"

"If I may offer a suggestion? I propose that Ed stay here tonight, so that we can test the limits of his mutation. This will be a test to see just what has happened to Ed."

Eddy said to Edd, "Well, I ain't goin' home; not until we know for sure Ed's fine!"

Eddward looked at his friend with pride: this generous side of Eddy was about as common a sight as Bigfoot. "Eddy, how considerate of you to stay the night with Ed; you must really care about his well-being!"

"Care, shmare, I just wanna make sure he's fine before we reveal him to the cul-de-sac! I can see it now: ELEMENT E, THE HUMAN PERIOD TABLE!"

And just like that, all the pride he felt a moment ago drained out of his body, replaced by pure frustration. "You are not going to make Ed into one of your scams, Eddy! I am telling you right now, I-"

Eddy waved his hand at Edd in a "Chill out" kind of manner, and said, "Aw, relax Double D; I was just kidding! We really should hang out tonight, though. It's a Friday night, our parents are out of town, and Ed can turn into whatever he wants! It'll be the ultimate SLEEPOVER!"

Ed stopped running around as soon as he said those words, and shouted, "SLEEPOVER?! COOOOOL! I could be the giant Mattress King, from 'Journey to the Center of the Pillowverse, the European Edition'!" He jumped high in the air, and changed into a giant mattress over Edd and Eddy, hollering, "I AM THE MATTRESS KING! I SHALL SLEEP ON YOU!"

"ED, NOOOOOOO!"

_Next time on_ Ed Justice_: an experiment goes horribly wrong! What is the catastrophic result for poor Double D?! And a mysterious figure is coming to the cul-de-sac; is he there for good, or for awesome?! Tune in next week for the next installment of_ Ed Justice! _Same Ed time, same Ed channel!_


	2. Chapter 2: Weather on the EDs

Ed Justice

Chapter 2: Weather on the ED

"And with the weather, here's Jim Halpert. Jim?"

"Thanks, Pam. Well folks, as many of you may know, meteorologists around the world are trying to study this bizarre storm that seems to have come out of nowhere. Oh, wait, hold on one second…I have just received notice from the National Weather Service urging all civilians in the following counties to take precautions, should this storm go on the move. Glascow, Mecklenburg, Springfield, and Union. All citizens in those counties should prepare for the worst. And now, let's take a look at the weather for the weeke-"

Eddward Mardon hit the power button on the remote control, as he had seen all he needed to see. The cosmic storm was going to be somewhere over Springfield County, and Peach Creek just so happened to be in the dead center of Springfield! "Oh, how wonderful! This storm will give me the chance to try out my new weather station! Oh, I should go over a couple of things before the storm arrives, so many things to do, ooh so busybusybusybusy!"

"DOUBLE D, WILL YOU SHUT UP?! IT"S SEVEN IN THE MORNING!" Double D slapped a hand over his mouth, realizing he had disturbed his house guests. His friends Eddy O'Brian and Ed Mason had spent the night in his basement after they had spent all of yesterday trying to examine what had happened to Ed.

Ed's incident was…strange, to say the least: he had eaten a crystal orb that was thought to be a jawbreaker, woke up the next morning gold and purple, and found that he could now change his body into virtually anything. Edd and Eddy had been concerned for their friend, and didn't want him to go back home in his condition, so Eddy and Ed spent the night at Double D's house. To be precise, they slept in his basement.

He opened the door to the basement, and excitedly said, "Sorry Eddy, but I couldn't stay asleep much longer; I have so much to do before the storm hits!" Edd had been making preparations for this for over a week, ever since the cosmic storm had been discovered: building the weather station, studying the movement of the storm, analyzing every single factor, down to the last millisecond. He _would_ see this storm in action.

Eddy groggily stirred in his sleeping bag, and mumbled, "Only you could get this interested in the weather, Sock head."

The brainy boy walked into the kitchen, and called down to Eddy, "Have it your way, Eddy; I'm just going to be making breakfast, if you or Ed want anything."

"As if," Eddy grumbled, curling up as much as he could into his sleeping bag. Just then, he heard a sound that could only be described as someone dumping everything in their house into a giant fire. He looked over at the source of the noise, Ed, and saw that the sleeping giant was changing his body in his sleep. The miserly Eddy tried to block this out as much as he could by wrapping his pillow around his head. Unfortunately, even his pillow was no good for what happened next.

From the kitchen, Edd shouted down to his half-awake friend, "Eddy? Do you want butter on your toast?"

Ed's eyes snapped open, and his body returned to its normal shape as he leapt from his sleeping bag, shouting, "BUTTERED TOAST!" Ed got so worked up that his legs turned into streams of fire that propelled him to the top of the stairs in an instant; those same flames scorched his and Eddy's sleeping bag, leaving nothing but a charred Eddy. Coughing up black clouds of smoke, Eddy decided maybe now was a good time to get up. As he climbed the basement steps, he heard the sound of an excited Ed, who continued to say, "Butteredtoastbutteredtoastbutteredtoast!"

He also heard a frantic Double D shout, "Ed, settle down! You're melting the linoleum!"

Eddy entered the kitchen clad in a pair of orange boxers, a white tank top, and a hairnet. He lazily scratched his armpit, and asked Edd, "So Sock head, what's so important about this storm anyway?"

"Well Eddy," said an excited Edd, who was currently making scrambled eggs at the stove, "This storm is something that supposedly does NOT come from Earth! Everyone is wondering what it is exactly, and I intend to find out tonight, when it passes over Peach Creek."

The half-asleep Eddy stared at his genius friend, and said, "It's. The. Weather. It isn't anything special; it'll probably just turn out to be some sorta big thunderstorm or something."

"Be that as it may, Eddy, I still want to study this phenomenon. Think about it: this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, something that might never occur again! Why, I know there are a few shops in town trying to make a buck or two off of this cosmic storm."

Suddenly, Eddy's head perked up; whenever there was money involved, Eddy would be there. "Double D, you said that people are tryin' to make a buck off this thing?!"

"That's right, Eddy. T-shirts, hats, and even novelty raincoats! It's crazy!"

The greedy boy began rubbing his hands together as dollar signs filled his eyes. He quickly asked Edd, "Double D, you got any old t-shirts around here?!"

Edd turned to his friend and said, "Why, yes we do! Mother and Father were just about to donate some of their old clothes to the Goodwill, and are keeping them in the garage; why do you-" he paused, as he knew what Eddy was thinking right now: how to scam the children of the cul-de-sac. "Don't even think about it, mister!" That did little to stop Eddy as he sped off to the garage in search of the t-shirts.

If there was one thing the children of the cul-de-sac would remember about the Eds, it's that they would try nearly every DAY to scam them out of their allowance money. Each time it was a new trick: once, they had tried to make the ultimate energy drink; the next day, they made tacos out of paper plates, orange crayons, and grass; they even made a small city out of cardboard boxes, where they had tattoo parlors, magazine stands, and shopping malls. Yes, when it came to money, the Eds always seemed to have a trick up their sleeve.

Of course, these scams never worked out in the end; many a time have the Eds been severely beaten for their deeds. They have been hung in a giant cage, put in cement, and had fruit thrown at them. Each and every failure leaves them penniless and without jawbreakers, but the boys never give up in their quest for that succulent candy.

Double D ran after his greedy friend, and found him in the garage with all of the clothes that Mr. and Mrs. Mardon had been planning on donating to charity, writing on the t-shirts with a black marker. "EDDY!" cried Edd, "What in the name of Pete are you DOING?!"

Eddy looked at his friend with a manic grin and replied, "I'm gettin' started on our best scam ever: NOVELTY CLOTHING!" When he saw that his brainy friend was still standing in the doorway, he went back to work, and said, "I'm tellin' ya Double D, it'll be a gold mine! People are gonna want cheap clothing to remember this day by, and it's something they can show off to people, like, "Yeah, I was there when the storm hit Peach Creek. It's a niche market, I tell ya! A NICHE MARKET! Hehehehehehehe…" Eddy went back to writing on the clothes, chuckling at his latest display of genius; this time, he had even outdone himself. This scam was sure to rake in the dough, he just knew it!

Realizing that no one else was working on the scam, Eddy shouted out, "ED! GET IN HERE!"

A fireball flew through the air from the kitchen, nearly incinerating Double D along the way. The fire stopped suddenly, and morphed back into the lovable lump known as Ed. He smiled dumbly and said, "Hiya, Eddy!" Eddy responded by throwing a hammer at Ed's head.

"Get to work, Lumpy! I need you to make a stand for me ASAP! Sockhead, you need you ta paint a sign for me! Now, let's get ta impressin'!"

Edd sighed in defeat. Once Eddy had a scam in mind, it was impossible to stop him from carrying through with it. "I'll get right on it, Eddy…"

_***_

_Meanwhile…_

A young man in a sharp red suit is walking down a brightly lit corridor, eyes dead-set on the large wooden door in front of him. He approaches the door, and knocks on it with his fist. A gruff voice from within says, "Come in." and then coughs.

The man enters the darker room, and looks at the figure at the desk, writing on a paper. As the younger man comes to the desk, the figure looks up and smiles. "Welcome home, son. How did the mission go?"

"It went perfectly, exactly as I planned," says the younger man, smirking, "But then again, what else did you expect? I was leading it." This man is in his mid-twenties, and has longer hair, spiked up with product. He is clean shaven, and looks like a male model; his only disfigurement is the scar on his cheek, which makes his face look like it is twisted into a grin.

Laughing, the figure at the desk claps, and says, "HAHA! That's my boy!" The figure puts away the paper it was working on, and returns to looking at the man. "You always were the tactician. Even as a boy, you thought three steps ahead of everyone else; have I ever told you how proud I am of you?"

Frowning, the man replies, "Almost every day, now where's my payment?" He didn't like it when the boss got all sappy like this; it hurt the family business, and made them seem weak and inefficient as assassins. After killing an important political figure in Brussels, all he wanted was his payment, nothing else.

The figure grumbled something under its voice, and said, "I also remember how greedy you could be. You still are!" It coughed, and said, "Fine, fine, you want your payment? Head home."

The mention of the word had sent a shiver up the man's back.

"You heard me: go home, you'll get your reward."

"But, I thought that you would give me the-"

"I made no such agreement young man, and be grateful you're even getting anything from me!"

The young man sighed, and said, "Whatever, Mom. So, do I have to leave immediately?"

The woman at the desk replied, "I think it'd be better if you left soon, since You-Know-Who will be home."

"Okay, I'll play it cool." He turned to leave, and then stopped and mumbled something under his breath.

"I'm sorry, honey, what did you say? I didn't catch it."

"I said…'I love you, Mom'."

"Thank you sweetie! You be careful out there!"

"Aww, Mom!"

***

_Back in Peach Creek…_

Eddy stopped what he was doing, and sneezed.

Edd looked over and asked, "Eddy, are you coming down with a cold?"

"Hmm? Nah, it's probably just someone talking about me. Now, get to modeling!"

The Eds had finished altering the clothes that were in Edd's garage, and now Ed and Edd were modeling the clothes for Eddy.

Ed came bouncing into the garage wearing a pair of short-shorts that had the words 'Cosmic Storm' printed on the back, a blouse that had 'I Heart Storms' written on the front, and a bra that he wore over the blouse that had 'Cosmic Storm' printed on the cups. He was singing in a very off-key voice, "I FEEL PRETTY, OH SO PRETTY! I FEEL PRETTY AND WITTY AND-"

"ED! Stop dancing around, get over here, and POSE!"

"Buttered toast!" exclaimed Ed as he bounded over to Eddy, and kicked a leg up in the air.

Eddy looked his dim-witted friend over, and said, "Okay, Ed, looks good. Double D, you're up!"

"Oh, Eddy, do I have t-"

"Quit yer bellyaching, Sockhead! These clothes are gonna sell, I know it, but they ain't gonna sell if those pigeons don't think they look good! Now, get out here and show me whatcha got!"

The brilliant Edd let out a sigh of despair, and groaned, saying "Me and my big mouth…" He proceeded to walk out in front of Eddy, wearing a trench coat that said 'Cosmic Storm' on the back, carpenter pants that were painted with lightning bolts going up the sides, and a long-sleeved shirt that had a lightning bolt in the center, with a message that said, "Can you smell what the UNIVERSE is cookin'? COSMIC STORM" around it.

Eddy gave Double D the once-over and said, "Looks okay, but you need to put a little more life into it, Sockhead! Seriously, you look like a mandarin!"

"Mannequin, Eddy, and what do you mean 'Put some life into it'?"

"You know…some life: strike a Superman pose, go King of the World, just do something!"

Edd sighed in defeat, and stretched his arms out to the sides, opened his palms, and imagined that he was in the middle of a tornado; floating freely, he flew anywhere he wanted. He could see outside the whirlwind, and saw a freak blizzard in front of him, a hailstorm to his right, a deluge of rain at his left, and he could feel the rays of a brilliant sun behind him. Just as Double D was about to glide towards the blizzard, a familiar voice shook him back to reality.

"DOUBLE D, WAKE UP!"

With a shock, Edd woke from his daydream. That was a wonderful dream; all that power swirling around him felt…calming. Assuring in some way. But that was just a dream, nothing more.

Eddy was trying to open up the garage door, so that they could begin the scam. Well, Ed was opening the door, Eddy was busy glaring at Edd.

"Are you okay, Sockhead? Can't have one of my models being sick now."

"No, I'm fine, Eddy; I must have just drifted off for a second."

"Well, help Ed set up the stand." Eddy began to rub his hands together as he cackled, and said, "Soon, those suckers will be coming here and getting hand-me-down clothes for a low, low price, and we'll be swimming in JAWBREAKERS!"

"If you say so, Eddy." Double D paused again as he lifted a pile of shirts, and realized something important. "Good lord, Eddy! How do we explain Ed's condition to the other kids?!"

Eddy looked over at Ed, who was carrying two large planks of wood under his arms, and replied, "We'll just tell them that Ed painted himself again, don't worry about it."

***

Across the street, two kids were watching the Eds. One was Kevin West, the other was Nazz Zorell. Kevin was a gruff young boy who let his muscles do the talking, and absolutely _hated_ the Eds, particularly Eddy. He always called them dorks, and if they bothered him in any way he made sure to give them a knuckle sandwich. Kevin almost always wore a green long-sleeved shirt, a pair of black shorts, a red baseball cap (always turned backwards, since that was the cool thing to do) and a pair of black running shoes.

Nazz was a cute girl of twelve, who had the boys of the cul-de-sac wrapped around her finger (not that she knew it). She thought the Eds were very silly, but she didn't seem to mind them too much, particularly Edd. She always called them dudes, and if they bothered her in any way she usually let it slide. Nazz was a sort-of tomboy, and had her blonde hair cut in a bob, wore a black t-shirt under her white tank top, a pair of baggy jeans, and a pair of black Chuck Taylors.

Kevin glared at the Eds as they worked, and asked Nazz, "What do you think those dorks are up to?"

She shrugged, and replied, "I dunno…you want to go see?"

When she looked at Kevin with those baby blue eyes, Kevin knew he couldn't say no; no matter how much he hated the Eds, Nazz always came first.

"Sure, Nazz, whatever you want."

"Thanks, Kev! Hey, Double D, what're you guys doing?"

Edd turned at the sound of his nickname, and found it to be the girl of his dreams. If there was one boy in the cul-de-sac who liked Nazz more than Kevin, it was Double D. Whenever he saw her, he would break into a nervous sweat and mumble incoherently, trying to find a way to excuse himself.

This was no exception. "Oh, h-he-hello, N-N-Nazz! H-how…d-d-do…y-y-you…d-d-d-d-do! We're…w-we're m-m-maaaaak-k-king cl-cl-cl-"

"We're making clothes! Would you like to buy some?" Thankfully, Ed didn't get tight-lipped around women, and was able to tell her what they were up to.

Nazz giggled, and said, "Well, I like your outfit, Ed. And Double D, you look awesome! Cool coat!" At this, Edd's face turned crimson, and he hid himself in his t-shirt; Kevin growled and went over to Eddy.

"What is all this, Dorky?"

"What does it look like, Kevin? We're selling novelty clothing, in light of the cosmic storm tonight, and I can tell that you are gonna buy something!"

"As if! Why would I waste my money on some junk you dorks probably pulled out of a garage?!"

"Because it's cheap, and this yellow hat totally brings out your eyes! HAHAHAHAHAH!" Eddy loved joking on Kevin, even if it meant physical pain on his part.

Sure enough, Kevin's fist smashed into Eddy's face, knocking the small Ed out of his seat.

Nazz scowled, and said, "Kevin! Knock it off, dude!"

"But Nazz, he started it!"

"I don't care who started it, I'm finishing it!"

The boys all stared at Nazz; it was rare for her to talk down to Kevin like that. She looked at all the boys and said, "What? Babysitters' gotta be able to maintain the peace, y'know?"

Kevin gulped, and mumbled, "Yeah, sure…"

Soon, the other kids of the cul-de-sac began to congregate at Edd's garage, all of them wanting to see what the Eds were up to this time. Ed's red-haired sister ran over to the stand with her friend Jimmy Fenton, a ten-year-old blonde-haired boy, who had a metal retainer around his face that forced him to speak with a slight impediment. Rolf Heinrich stopped working in his families fields long enough to stop by the stand, his dark-navy hair bobbing in the slight breeze. Johnny "2x4" Wayne ran down the street with his buddy Plank, who was a wooden board with a smiley face drawn on it.

"Oooh! Sharah, I want that one!" Jimmy said excitedly as he pointed to a poncho that featured a storm cloud with the planet Saturn above it.

"Okay, Jimmy. How much for the shirt, half-pint?"

Eddy shouted at Sarah, "Watch who you're calling 'half-pint', SMALL-FRY!" He lowered his voice and said, "Everything's a quarter. Now are ya gonna buy something or just stand there? 'Cause there's a standing fee."

Rolf looked over a pair of galoshes, and asked Edd, "Double-D-Ed-Boy, will these stormy boots hold up against Rolf's potato soil?"

"Umm, I think so, Rolf!"

"Hey, Ed! Plank wants to know if there're any t-shirts in his size!" said Johnny, as he held Plank close to the clothing, as if the board really _was_ looking through the clothes.

Ed looked through the clothes, and replied, "Uh, nope! But we do have mutant mole-crabs from the Planet Crab-Mole!"

Johnny nodded, then held Plank close to his ear, and asked, "What was that, Plank?" He listened to the board for a few seconds, and then said, "Plank says 'Take a hike!'!"

***

The Eds actually managed to sell most of the clothes, leaving them with a jar full of quarters. Eddy cradled the jar in his arms like a newborn baby, and said, "Oh baby! Look at all this LOOT!"

Edd, tired from having to model clothes and distribute them to the kids, replied, "Yes, we certainly procured a large amount of quarters from the children this time."

"I have gravy in my pocket, huhuh!" Ed was just as happy as Eddy to obtain that many quarters.

"Okay, boys, it's time to get some jawbreakers! Let's hurry, before the store closes!"

"Sorry, Eddy: I can't go with you," Edd said as he pushed himself off the stand, "I have to finish setting up my weather station before the storm hits."

Eddy just waved his hand at Double D, and told him, "Whatever, Sockhead; we'll pick up a few jawbreakers for you anyway!"

Brushing off his shirt, Edd replied, "Thank you, Eddy. I should be finished by the time you two get back; try not to eat them all!"

"Yeah, yeah, have fun with your weather thingy, Double D!"

"I AM READY FOR JAWBREAKERS!" Ed shouted as he flew into the air with bursts of flame erupting from his feet. He grabbed Eddy with an arm that turned into a tentacle, and as he flew into the distance, Double D could still hear Eddy screaming at the top of his lungs:

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!"

"Loveable lump," said Edd at Ed's antics, "Back to work!"

***

_Three hours later…_

"I can NOT believe you did that, Ed!"

"I'm sorry, Eddy, honest and forsooth!"

"Yeah, well, _sorry_ doesn't cut it. You flew us clear into Lemon Brook! By the time we got back, the store was closed 'cause of the weather!"

"I thought my rocket legs would get us there faster, but it didn't work…"

"Your _head _won't work when I'm done wi-"

Eddy paused as he stared at the Mardon residence, which now sported a giant antenna on the roof, and was surrounded by a dozen other small pieces of equipment. The smallest Ed looked over the house, seeing that it had been rigged with numerous cables and wires, covering the house like a vine of ivy. Before he could study it any more, a strong gust of wind came and knocked Eddy to the ground; brushing himself off, he rang the doorbell.

"Just a minute!" came Double D's voice from inside. Five minutes passed, and Edd had still not opened the door.

"Hurry it up, Sockhead, I'm freezin' out here!"

The door opened just then, revealing a very busy and very stressed Eddward Mardon. He was wearing a white lab coat, a pair of gloves on his hands, and yellow goggles over his eyes. As soon as the door was open, Edd said a rushed "Hello," to his friends, and then ran off to some other part of the house, perhaps to rig more machines.

"What the heck is all this, Double D?!" Eddy asked as he stood in the entrance of his friend's house, removing his shoes as he always did at the Mardon house.

Calling out from the upstairs, Edd answered, "I've rigged the house with numerous detectors, so as to catch any changes in the weather at all. My computer downstairs is linked to the weather rod on the roof, and it will give me exact readings on what happens outside."

"Weather rod?"

"The machine on the roof that looks like a giant, metal wand! Now, if you two could just make your way to the basement, I'd be ever so grateful. AND DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING! That means YOU, Ed!"

"But I like to press the pretty buttons, Double D!"

Eddy grabbed his dim-witted friend by the ear, and dragged to the basement door, saying, "Just listen to Sockhead, okay?" and threw Ed down the stairs.

A few minutes later, Edd joined his friends in the basement, and said "Okay gentlemen! All the detectors are in place, the rod is set, and the storm is nigh; flip the switch on the computer, Eddy, and we'll be ready to go!"

Eddy sarcastically saluted Double D, and said, "Aye-aye, Captain!" He turned the computer on, and it soon hummed with life.

Double D ran over to the seat, and pushed Eddy out of the chair in his excitement. The half-sized Ed cried out, "Hey, watch what you're doin', Double D!"

"Sorry, Eddy, I'm just so excited at what is about to occur! We're witnessing something remarkable, gentlemen: we are about to behold something not of this world, and with my machines, we won't miss a nanosecond!" Edd turned to the screen, and stared intently at the image before him. The rod had a camera of sorts built into it, and right now the rod was recording what was going on outside. So far, everything seemed to be fairly uneventful: the sky had become much darker, while the wind had picked up, and could be heard through the speakers installed in the rod.

A few minutes later, a few drops of water fell onto the camera, and soon the rain was coming down harder and faster. Now, a full-blown storm has occurring outside, and Double D had every second recorded on camera.

"Don't you think this is incredible, Eddy?!" Edd asked from his chair.

"I don't see what the big deal is, Double D; it's just another storm! It'll probably blow over in a few minutes."

"Au contraire, Eddy," the capped Ed replied. "This storm could last for any amount of time. It could end now, or it could end in a few hours. One thing is for certain though, this is a storm unlike any storm before it!"

Ed smiled and pointed at the computer screen with hand that had changed into a pool stick, saying, "I like how the weather is all crackly and gray now! It's just like the Monster World of Herculoid, the Mini-series."

"CRACKLY AND GRAY?!" Edd swiftly turned around, to discover that, sure enough, the camera was projecting nothing but static. "Ohdearohdearohdear, this is not good!"

"What's the matter, Sockhead?"

"The camera's out, Eddy! It's not recording anything right now! That means one of us has to go up there and see what the problem is!" Edd paused, and realized that Eddy wouldn't know what to do, and Ed was…Ed. "I'll go!" he said with confidence, as he put on a poncho.

Eddy watched his friend, and asked, "You sure?"

"Positive. I'm the one who built it, so I should be the one to fix it."

"You need me n' Ed to do anything?"

"Yes," said Edd as he pulled out a walkie-talkie and handed it to Eddy, "I want you and Ed to let me know the instant you see an image on the screen. Understand?"

"Of course, but you sure you want to go out now? It sounds like it's gettin' worse out!" At that moment, a large clap of thunder erupted near the house, causing the Eds to lose their balance for a brief moment.

Edd steadied himself, and replied, "I may not want to, but I have to."

Ed was near bursting with tears, and cried out, "You are so brave, Double D!" He wrapped his arms around his friend, and squeezed him in a bear hug.

"Erk! Uh, thank you, Ed, but I must be going; that camera won't fix itself, y'know!"

With help from Eddy, Edd was released from Ed's grip, and he ran up the stairs of the basement and ran outside, where he was immediately knocked off his feet by a strong gust of wind.

He struggled to rise, and when he did, the brilliant Edd saw something that shocked him to the core: the sky had turned an ungodly red, as if the universe was bleeding onto the Earth. Shivering, the young boy braced himself against the wind as he made his way to the side wall of his house. He had prepared a ladder of sorts on the wall, in case he needed to climb up and repair something on the roof; gripping the wall as tight as he could, Edd began to climb as the rain beat down on him and the wind threatened to blow him down.

Finally reaching the top, Edd gasped for air, and began to crawl across the roof, using another set of riggings to cling to. He made his way to the weather rod, where he grabbed hold of the side, and hoisted himself up, clinging for dear life to the machine. Edd pressed a few buttons, flipped some switches, and then spoke into the walke-talkie, shouting, "Eddy, do you see anything?"

Eddy replied, "Yeah, it's working Double D! Hey, I can see you!"

Edd then heard Ed say, "Ooh, ooh, is it Double D?! HI DOUBLE D!"

Smiling, the young boy on the roof said, "Okay, fellows, I'm coming down."

Just as he ended the transmission, a huge bolt of red lightning came from the sky, and struck the weather rod and Edd. That moment was easily the most painful thing the boy had ever felt in his life, as it felt like his body was being torn to shreds from the inside out.

He let out a ghastly "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" but the pain refused to end.

***

All the kids of the cul-de-sac stopped what they were doing, and felt their blood run cold at the sound of the bone-chilling scream. Nazz turned from her TV, Kevin stopped adjusting his bike, and Rolf looked up from his pile of peeled potatoes; Johnny shivered in his bed, Sarah trembled from under her covers, and Jimmy gave a shriek of his own.

Nazz got up from her chair and went to the window, where she saw the most terrifying thing in her life: right before her eyes, Double D was being electrocuted on top of his roof. "Oh my gosh, Double D!" she screamed, as she ran to her hall closet and pulled out a poncho. She threw open her door and ran across the street.

***

After hearing his friend scream, Eddy spoke into the walkie-talkie, saying, "D-Double D? Are you okay?"

There was no answer on the other end.

"H-Hey, Sockhead, talk to me…"

Still no answer.

"DOUBLE D! ANSWER ME!"

Edd was not responding.

Eddy began to panic, copying Double D, saying, "Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh, Double D!"

Ed began to sob and cry out, "Poor Double D! Why did it have to be him?! CURSE YOU, HERCULOIDIANS!"

"Okay, calm down Lumpy; we have to go get Double D! Come on!"

The two boys leaped up the stairs of the basement, and ran as fast as they could outside.

Up on the roof, the lightning finally ran its course through Edd, but it had done its damage; he had lost consciousness long ago, and now had collapsed. The boy's body began to slide down the rooftop with nothing to stop it, just as one figure ran to the house and two came from within.

Nazz, Ed and Eddy all congregated on Edd's front lawn. When Eddy saw Nazz in front of him, he stopped, and shouted, "Nazz?! What're you doin' here?!"

"I heard Double D scream and I saw him getting electrocuted, where is he-AAAAAHHHH!"

The beautiful girl screamed as she saw Edd fall off the rooftop. "SOMEBODY CATCH HIM!"

Ed and Eddy turned and saw what Nazz was seeing, and they too shouted, "HOLY SMOKES!"

All at once, the three screamed out, "DOOOUUUBLE DEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

The boy's body suddenly stopped falling, and began to hover in mid-air; as he hovered, gusts of wind began to circle around him. It righted itself and stood perfectly straight above the ground.

Nazz nervously asked, "D-Double D?"

His eyes fluttered for a second and then shot open, revealing eyes that were covered in blue flames. Edd's hands opened, and the same flames sprang to life in his palms; the winds began to pick up and grew stronger and faster. Soon, a small tornado encircled the boy's body, and blew away his friends and tore up the ground around him.

Turning to Eddy, Nazz screamed out, "What's up with Double D?!"

"I dunno, something must have happened to him!"

"WHAT happened?!"

"The bolt of cosmic lightning must have altered him at a molecular level, making it so that he has become able to change the weather with his very mind. Given that his mind must have been shut down by the electricity, it probably is acting on basic instinct."

Eddy and Nazz turned to Ed, who had blurted out one of his rare intellectual comments. Suddenly, the air around them turned cold, as snow began to fall in great amounts, while hail the size of golf balls fell from the sky.

"How…ouch!…do we…ouch!…get him to…STOP?!" cried Eddy.

"I think…ouch!...if we can…ouch!...get him to wake up…ouch!...he should stop!" shouted Ed.

Nazz screamed out, "DOUBLE D, STOP! YOU'RE GOING TO KILL US ALL!"

There was no end to the torrent, and now a veritable waterfall began to flood the cul-de-sac.

***

From their bedrooms, Jimmy and Sarah screamed out, "IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!"

Johnny stood by his window, watching the destruction around him, as he told Plank, "Well Plank, I guess you were right. The world really is gonna end today!"

From his cellar, Rolf lit a candle as he lay with his family's animals. He sniffed the air around him, and recoiled, saying, "Truly, it is the end of ages!"

Kevin hid in his closet, where he held onto a wrench for dear life, mumbling, "ohmanohmanohmanohmanohmanohmanohmanohmanohmanohman!"

Not too far away, in a trailer park, three sisters were hiding in their kitchen. The middle-oldest said, "What's up with the weather?"

The youngest girl was sobbing, and crying out, "ED, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

The oldest sister smacked both girls on the head, and said, proudly, "Would you two knock it off?! It ain't the end of the world, and we ARE gonna get through this! After all, we ARE the Kanker sisters!"

***

As the storm reached near biblical proportions, Ed, Nazz and Eddy were holding onto the bushes in Edd's front yard for dear life, but even those were being uprooted by the massive winds. Eddy screamed out, "SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!"

Nazz shouted at the top of her lungs, "DOUBLE DEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

As suddenly as the storm began, it ended then and there. The winds died down, snow ceases to fall, the hail vanishes, and the rainfall ended.

Edd's eyes shut, then opened again. They had returned to their normal appearance: pale green with specks of gray. The fire in his hands was slowly extinguished, and the young boy was left floating in the air in a gentle breeze.

He gazed at his friends as they lay littered around his lawn. He whispered, "N-Nazz…?" and he fell to the ground, the last of the wind disappearing.

Eddy, Nazz and Ed stared at their friend, as a single ray of light burst through the clouds and landed on the boy. They cautiously approached him, and once they thought everything was safe, they picked his body up and carried him inside.

_***_

_One day later…_

Edd was lying on his bed, still unconscious. His breathing was normal, he just wasn't waking up. Nazz and Ed were checking on him right now; Eddy had gone back over to his house to get a few things.

Nazz sat at the side of Eddward's bed, held his hand and said, "Come one, Double D…wake up!"

Across the street, at the O'Brian residence, Eddy was looking through his kitchen for some ingredients. "Double D's bound to wake up when he smells my five-alarm omelet cooking!"

The doorbell rang, interrupting Eddy's search. He grumbled as he walked over to the door, but once he opened the door, the boy found himself at a loss for words.

A twenty-five-year-old man stood in Eddy's doorway. He wore a black hoodie, a navy baseball cap, a pair of blue jeans and white sneakers. His hair was obviously gelled, as it was spiked up high, with four strands hanging down in his face.

Eddy managed to stammer out, "L-L-L-L-Luke? Is that you?"

The man smiled and said, "Hey little bro, long time no see!"

_Will Double D wake from his coma? And why has Eddy's brother returned? These questions and more will be answered in the next installment of: ED JUSTICE!_


	3. Chapter 3: I am Rubber, You are ED!

Ed Justice

By The Mauve Lantern

_Previously on ED JUSTICE:_

"_Plank, you should know…I've always loved you!"_

"_Rolf! Don't die on me, man! DON'T YOU DIE ON ME!"_

"_Jimmy, what is it?"_

"_Sarah, I'm…pregnant!"_

"_At long last, Element E, the world will discover your identity!"_

"_You'll never get away with this, Professor Scam!"_

"_Come on Double D…wake up!"_

"_B-Big Bro?!"_

"_Long time no see, Eddy!"_

Chapter 3: I Am Rubber, You Are Ed!

This had been one crazy weekend for Eddy O'Brian: on Friday, his friend Ed Mason ate what was discovered to be an ancient relic from Egypt; the next day, he discovered he could change his body into anything.

Sunday had been a disaster as well, as not only were Ed and Eddy unable to obtain jawbreakers from the candy shop, his best friend Eddward "Double D" Mardon had been struck by a bolt of cosmic lightning. The lightning had altered Edd's body, allowing him to control the weather at will; however, as he was unconscious, his powers went out of control, and he had nearly destroyed the cul-de-sac in the process.

Now, he was asleep in his house, and just as Eddy had been getting some eggs to make an omelet for his friend, his brother Luke showed up at his door.

"L-Luke? Is that really you?"

"'Course it's me, Eddy! Who else could I be?"

Eddy recalled the last time he had seen his brother:

It had been four years ago, when Eddy was eight and his brother was leaving for college. He remembered looking up at his brother, seeing a bright grin on his face, and smiling back at him. Luke waved good-bye to his family as he stood from his dorm building, and Eddy had had to fight back tears.

Of course, it was a year later when the school called his parents to tell them that Luke had died in a car crash. That was the day that made Eddy into what he was today: ever since then, he had picked up on all of his brother's habits, like wearing a hair net, scamming the kids (at first, it had only been a hobby), and his brother's fiery temper.

And now, that dead brother was standing right in front of him, alive and well, with not a scratch on him. To say that Eddy was shocked was the understatement of the century.

"But, the car crash- Mom and Dad told me all about it…they said you were gone."

Eddy's brother ran his fingers through his long hair, and said, "Look, Eddy, it's a long story, and I don't really want to talk about it. Right now, I just want to come inside and get some shut-eye, okay?" He pushed his way past his brother, saying, "Wake me up, and it'll be the last thing you do, got that?"

"Uh, yeah, su-sure!" As soon as Luke walked up the stairs and out of sight, Eddy sprinted out the door at an inhuman speed.

_At the Mardon residence…_

Nazz Zor'ell sat by Edd's bed, watching him intently; she had been there since yesterday, when the storm broke out. That night was ingrained in her memory and try as she might, she couldn't help herself from thinking back to it.

That day, she had hung out with Kevin for about an hour, until she had noticed that the Eds were setting up a stand; intrigued, Nazz and Kevin had gone over to see what the boys were doing. Ed Mason had said that they were selling novelty clothes, made special for the storm that evening.

Nazz remembered seeing some of the clothes they had available, and she also remembered how cool Edd looked in his clothes. A faint blush lit up her face when she thought about him in that ensemble: gloves, boots, trench coat; these were things that the nerdiest Ed would not usually wear. For a faint second, Edd had appeared…confident.

After buying a pair of shorts and a tank-top, Nazz had bid the Eds goodbye, and went back to her house to watch some TV. There wasn't really anything good on, so she had popped a movie into the DVD player; coincidentally, the girl had picked out The Perfect Storm. She watched the whole thing through, and started to watch another movie, when the storm began.

With the wind howling outside and rain coming down in buckets, Nazz had been scared stiff; worse yet, the weather channel was calling for flash floods. Sure enough, water began to seep into the house, forcing Nazz to seek shelter on top of a cabinet in her living room. It was about this time that she had looked outside, and found that the sky had turned a blood red; she remembers screaming in terror and drawing the curtains shut to avoid the horrifying sight. What came next, however, scared her to death.

Shortly after she shut the curtains, Nazz heard a guttural howl of agony, like someone being torn limb from limb. She had ripped open the curtains, and found that the source of the scream was Double D on top of his roof, struck by a giant bolt of red lightning. Acting on impulse, Nazz had run out to help the poor boy; thinking back, it might have been safer had she stayed inside.

When she ran out to save Edd, the boy had begun to fall from his rooftop to the ground, with nothing stopping him. Before he hit the ground, however, a small whirlwind formed beneath him, catching him and saving him from certain death (if he wasn't dead already). Nazz remembers cowering in fear when she saw his eyes light up in balls of fire, and fire bursting from his hands; the sight was breathtaking, and utterly terrifying to behold.

After that, it was kind of a blur: basically, Edd's body, now running on autopilot, had begun to manipulate the already-chaotic weather, making it rain harder, lowering the temperature for snow and hail, and forming giant tornadoes. It's a miracle that none of the houses had been harmed by the near-apocalypse that had occurred.

Nazz still wasn't sure how Double D had stopped, but she remembered calling out his name, and the winds had died down and the snow vanished. All that remained was the torrential rain and a small ray of sunlight that shined down on the boy.

Ed had hoisted the boy onto his back, and carried him inside, where they had changed him into some warm clothes and put him in his bed. And now, here she was: fourteen hours later, and Double D had shown no signs up waking up yet.

Gripping Edd's hands tighter, Nazz whispered, "C'mon, Double D: wake up!"

Ed, who had been watching his friend as well, was alerted to the sound of Edd's front door being slammed open; the next thing he knew, he was thrown into the wall as a pale and anxious Eddy blasted the door open with brute force.

As he gasped for air, Nazz shouted at him, "Eddy, what are you doing?!"

"My-my-my-my b-b-b-br-"

"You're WHAT?!"

"MY BROTHER IS BACK!"

Nazz and Ed, now having peeled himself from the wall, botch cried out, "YOU'RE BROTHER'S BACK!?"

"Y-Y-Y-Y-YEAH! He was just by my house!"

"But, you said your brother DIED!"

"I know, but I was making an omelet for Double D, and then the doorbell rings, and there he is! Luke is back!"

Ed wrapped Eddy in a tight squeeze, and cried out, "YOUR BROTHER HAS RETURNED HOME! OH FRABJOUS DAY! CALLOOH, CALLAY!"

"ED, LET GO OF ME!" Pulling himself out of his idiot friend's grasp, Eddy caught his breath and said, "Listen, I'm going back to talk with him; you guys need to come too!"

Nazz gestured to the comatose Edd and asked, "But what about Double D, Eddy? Are we just supposed to leave him here?"

"He'll be fine, Nazz. Besides, I thought you wanted to meet my brother?"

"Yeah, but not like this! Double D needs us, Eddy, and if you can't see that, then you're an even worse friend than I thought!"

Eddy curled his hands into fists and grimaced; the only person who made him this mad was Kevin. "You know what?! Forget about you! Me n' Ed are gonna go see Luke, we don't need you!" He grabbed Ed by the arm and dragged him out of the room.

Ed gave a wave of his hand to Nazz, and shouted, "BYE, NAZZ!"

Nazz, now left alone in the room, walked back to Double D's side, and plopped down in her chair. "Stupid Eddy," she said to herself, "Why does he have to be so darn stubborn all the time?"

The girl grabbed her friend's hand, and asked the unresponsive boy, "What do you see in him anyway, Double D?"

At the O'Brian residence, Luke was searching every inch of the house for the supposed reward his mother had left him. He was upturning cushions, looking through the attic, and scouring the basement; every location turned up empty.

"Damn that woman…where did she leave this thing?!"

He pulled a communicator from his pocket, and tapped into his mother's frequency. After waiting for his message to be patched through, he was rewarded with the sound of his mother's voice.

"Hi, sweetie! I hope everything's okay at home!"

Luke grunted, and said, "Look, mother, where's that thing you left at home? I've been looking everywhere for it!"

"You mean it wasn't in the kitchen?"

"Why the deuce would it be in the kitchen?!"

"I left it there, and forgot to put it in the safe. And you watch your language, young man!"

Seeing as he was getting nowhere, Luke asked, "If it's not in the kitchen, where could it possibly be?"

"Ask you brother, dear. You know that's one of the reasons I sent you home: you need to check in with your brother."

"Mom, the kid thought I was dead! How am I supposed to deal with this?!"

"Watch that tone, mister!"

"Sorry, mom…"

Mrs. O'Brian chuckled on the other line, and said, "That's better. Now, say hi to Eddy for me, and I'll see you in a few days, okay?"

"Fine." Then, before he ended the call, Luke whispered, "I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, sweetie."

Luke pressed the off button on his communicator, and put his finger to his chin. "Okay," he thought aloud, "Eddy would have been the last one to see this thing; I'll have to ask him about it…"

Speaking of the devil, Luke's baby brother picked that moment to burst through the front door. He ran into the kitchen with one of his friends, who was half-gold and half-purple, and shouted, "Luke, hey! You remember Ed, right?"

"Uh…yeeeeeeaaah, Ed. Good ol' Ed! Still painting yourself, I see!"

Ed guffawed, and declared, "Oh-ho, but this is not paint, Eddy's brother's ghost! I am actually ELEMENT E, the-"

Eddy threw his hand over his friend's mouth and said, "The world's biggest goofball! Yeah, Ed's been painting himself, and thinking he's a superhero; crazy, ain't it?"

Luke, suspecting nothing, laughed, and told Ed, "A superhero, huh? Y'know, I've always been more partial to supervillains, myself. A lot cooler, if you ask me."

Ed shouted at the top of his lungs, "AAAAAHHHHH, HE IS PURE EVIL!" and bolted out of the house as fast as he could.

"Ed, get back here!" Eddy started to run after his friend, only to be stopped by Luke.

"Just let him go, Eddy; I wanted to talk with you in private, anyway."

"O-Okay, bro. Sure!"

Luke led his brother to the TV room, and sat down in their father's recliner; Eddy took a spot on the couch, across from his older brother.

Luke put his hands together, and bluntly asked his brother, "So, Eddy, was there anything delivered here recently?"

"What?!" Eddy thought to himself. He hadn't seen his brother in years, and all he wanted to talk about was packages in the mail?!

"Uh, yeah, bro, there was this one thing that came to the house the other day. Why?"

"What happened to it, Eddy?"

"But-"

"**What happened to the thing, Eddy?**" Luke said, his voice raised to a threatening level.

Eddy knew better than to mess with his brother, and especially when he raised his voice. "Well, there was this orb, and-"

"What happened to the orb?"

"W-W-Well, the th-thing is, um…" How was Eddy supposed to explain that Ed had swallowed the Orb of Ra?

"I'm waiting…"

"It…um, Ed kinda…ate…it…"

"ATE it?!"

Eddy covered his head with his hands and begged for dear life, "I'msorryitwasamistakewedidn'tknowyou'dbelookinforitohgeezuspleaasedon'tkillme!"

Surprisingly, the beating never came; when Eddy realized he was safe (for now), he opened his eyes and saw that his brother was just lighting a cigarette. He nervously asked Luke, "U-Um, L-Luke, you're not mad, are you?"

Luke let out a puff of smoke and said, "'Course I am; it's just that I have to keep my rage in check these days. Doctor's orders."

Well, this was certainly news to Eddy. He knew what his brother could do in his rage, and he also knew that he had never seen someone about it beforehand. Why was he dealing with this now?

"So, Eddy," Luke asked, trying to sound as normal as possible, "How've things been?"

Edd was having the same dream again, the one where he is surrounded by all different sorts of weather conditions: blinding sunlight, ripping hail, freezing snow, and powerful rain. Trapped in an all-consuming tornado, the boy had nowhere to retreat to.

Ever since that night of the storm, the smartest Ed had been locked in this dream, perpetually frozen in the center of the cyclone. The most unsettling thing was the voices that spoke to him.

_What will you do, child of Adam?_

_Do you have the strength to wield this enormous power?_

_Or will you choose to abandon yourself to this realm for all eternity?_

_The choice is yours…_

Edd tried to speak, but found himself unable to; for some reason, he could only watch.

_For all your life, you have taken the easy way out…_

_Never taken the initiative…_

_What shall you choose, Eddward Mardon?_

_The choice is yours…_

The boy curled himself up into a ball, and tried his best to block out the voices that were tearing him apart with their words.

_Mardon, you've been given a great power…_

_A power that can change the world, if you let it…_

_This great energy has chosen you as its carrier…_

_The choice is yours…_

He didn't want to face his friends after what his lack of control had done to them. This "power" had nearly wiped out the cul-de-sac, and Ed, Nazz and Eddy had been right there with Edd. He didn't deserve that power.

Then, he heard a voice calling to him, saying, "Double D…wake up…come on, Double D…" Nazz!

_She's calling for you, Eddward…_

_Will you answer that call?_

_Or do you lack the courage to rise?_

_The choice is yours…_

Finally, Eddward had enough, and shouted, "THAT'S IT!" and he threw his arms out. He called out to the voices, "I've made my decision! I'll take your power AND I'll master it, as well!"

Once he said this, the winds died down, the rain, snow and hail ceased to fall, and the sunlight grew to fully encompass Eddward. The boy found himself lost in the blinding white light, but knew that he was heading home…

"I'll be there soon, pals…I'm coming…"

Nazz had fallen asleep at Edd's bedside, since she had stayed up all night watching him. As she breathed in and out lightly, a capped figure slowly opened his eyes and took in his surroundings.

He was in a room with green walls and a yellow carpet; there was a bookshelf across the room, and a desk on the far side. A skull lay on the desk, as well as a pad of paper that was covered with designs for various machines. As he stared closely at the bookshelf, the boy saw that each book was categorized properly, everything in its rightful place. "Just as I left it," Double D thought to himself, "Spick and span!"

It was at this moment that the boy felt the pressure of something lying on his leg; looking down, he saw a head of blonde hair on top of a pair of dainty hands. Eddward's face turned crimson when he realized just whose head and hands they belonged to.

"Nazz is HERE?! Sleeping on my bed, no less?!" Edd almost began to panic, but realized that he shouldn't disturb his guest.

He thought to himself, "She must have had a rough night…I can't even imagine it." Content with laying in bed, watching the sleeping girl, Edd lay back against his pillow, and ran math formulas in his mind; occasionally, he stole some glimpses of Nazz, and then blushed and returned to his calculus.

After what seemed an eternity (although it was only an hour or two), Nazz began to stir from her slumber, and was greeted by a soft voice that said to her, "Good morning, Nazz!"

She blinked her eyes a few times, and whispered, "Double D?" Realizing that the boy had, in fact, woken up, Nazz's eyes shot open and she wrapped the boy in a hug. "DOUBLE D, YOU'RE AWAKE!"

Nazz shouted towards the door of the room, "Hey, Ed! Double D's awake!"

Soon after, the sound of a raging river storming down the hallway could be heard, as Ed's lower body turned into a horizontal Niagara Falls. He burst into the room, a huge torrent of water trailing him, and he leaped towards Edd's bed, shouting, "DOUBLE DEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Ed crashed onto his friend, and grabbed him with arms made of vines; to be squeezed by them was not unlike being strangled by an anaconda. Edd tried to speak, but found the breath being forced out of him, Ed's hug overpowering him. Finally, Nazz shouted, "Ed! Let him go!"

The vines that encompassed Double D released him, and Ed sat back on the bed with a dopey grin on his face; the idea that he had almost killed one of his best friends never crossed his mind.

"Oh, Double D, I am so happy that you are awake! Did you have a good nap?"

Edd giggled to himself, and said, "Well, Ed, it wasn't so much a nap, as it was a coma."

Blinking once or twice, Ed made it clear that he didn't know what a coma was. Edd sighed and told Ed, "Yes, I had a good nap, Ed."

"Oh, goody!"

Nazz asked her friend, "Are you okay, Double D? I mean, after what happened the other night…"

"I-It's okay, Nazz. I've got it under control. I can handle this power; I know I can."

The girl wrapped her hand in Edd's and choked back tears of happiness, saying, "Okay."

It was a very tender moment, until Ed blurted out, "So, who wants some buttered toast and gravy to celebrate this moment?" and began to change one arm into a stream of gravy and his torso into a slice of buttered toast.

"ED, NO!"

_Later that evening…_

Luke sat in his father's recliner, watching _The Colbert Report _with a glass of scotch in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. He was getting antsy earlier, wanting to escape the doldrums of the cul-de-sac. How could his brother stand this; Eddy had at least twice as much energy as Luke did!

As he listened to the news about the comedic wit of Stephen Colbert, he heard his communicator going off in his pocket. Luke pulled the device out, and saw who was trying to reach him; it was his mother, and it looked like an urgent message.

Sighing, he set his drink down on the table and spoke into the communicator, asking, "What is it, mother?"

"Hi sweetie, I got your message from earlier; that Mason kid ate the orb, huh?"

"Yeah, the retard ate the orb! What were you THINKING, leaving it on the counter like a jawbreaker?!"

"Don't raise your voice at me, young man! I hope you're taking your medication like the doctor said; we don't need another incident like what happened in Istanbul…"

Istanbul had been a, in Luke's opinion, highly successful operation; his higher ups, on the other hand, failed to see his side. So he leveled a couple of buildings, big deal! It hadn't attracted too much attention to the family's dealings.

"Mom, I think you're overreacting. But yes, I am taking my medication."

"Good."

"…So, what was so urgent that you had to interrupt "ME" time?"

"I've got a job for you."

This piqued his interest: a JOB? As in, a real, honest-to-goodness JOB?

"What's up?"

"There's a chemical plant a few miles away from Peach Creek; the scientists there have been working on something for us for the past few months. It's a serum that will give our men greater powers than before, and we need you to secure it.

"However, the local law enforcement has somehow discovered the operation, and are zeroing in on the base. Your objective: get in, get the serum, and get out. Simple as that. Can you handle that, Luke?"

"Absolutely."

"Good. I'll upload the schematics of the building, the location of the serum, and the address to your comm., so you'll be good to go."

"Got it."

After the information came in, Luke carefully studied every aspect of the designs, making sure to capture every single detail in his memory. Once that was taken out of the way, he changed into a sharp Italian suit, and made sure everything was ready.

He left the house as quietly as he could, making sure to lock the doors, and made his way to his car. Luke crawled into the driver's seat, and started the engine. No sooner had he done that, then his brother showed up out of nowhere, in the passenger's seat.

"Hey, bro! Where we goin'?"

"EDDY?! WHAT THE (&, MAN?!"

"Well, I heard you leave the house, and then I heard the car starting, so I came to see what was up! So," he repeated, "Where we goin'?"

Luke slapped his brother's forehead and said, "I am going out to meet some friends; YOU are staying here!"

"OH, COME ON, LUKE! PLEASE LET ME COME WITH YOU! I CAN JUST WAIT IN THE CAR, FOR WHATEVER IT IS YOU'RE DOING!"

Deciding that it was more trouble than it was worth to argue with his brother, Luke glared at him, and said, "Fine, you can come."

Before Eddy could jump with joy, Luke continued, "Three rules: first; you don't ask what we're doing or where we're going; second, you will wear," he pause as he pulled a cloth from the back seat, "this cloth around your eyes, so that you don't know where we're going; finally, you will stay in the car when we stop, and you will keep the blindfold on. GOT IT?"

"Yeah yeah, sure thing bro! Whatever you say!" Eddy strapped himself to the seat, tied the blindfold around his eyes, and sat as still as he could.

Luke grimaced, and thought to himself, "This night just gets worse and worse."

It was only going to get worse for Luke and Eddy…

Strangely, after Edd had woken up, Ed had plopped himself down in Double D's TV room, watching through the window at Eddy's house. Nazz had left after dinner,

It was about 11:30 at night, and he was still there, in front of the window, watching the O'Brian house, when Double D came in dressed in his PJs. He asked his friend, "Ed, it's late; don't you want to go to bed?" Ed's parents were out of town, so he was allowed to stay over at Edd's house.

"No can do, old chum," Ed replied, with a serious look on his face, "I've got to keep an eye on the bad man."

"The bad man? Oh, you mean Eddy's brother, Luke? I fail to see how he's a bad man."

"I've got a feeling, pal; a bad feeling…"

"Oh, Ed, of all the crazy, paranoi-" Double D never got to finish his sentence, as Ed threw himself against the glass. "Ed, what are you doing?!"

"Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh, Double D! Look!"

The boy walked over to the window, and saw that Luke O'Brian was getting into his sports car. "Odd," Edd thought aloud, "Why is he getting into his car right now?"

"SHHHHHHHHHH!"

Edd kept watching, and saw Eddy sprinting into the car after his brother. "Oh dear, it seems Eddy's adamant on following his brother…" The car started up, and soon it went off into the night.

"Well, that's it Ed. It's not like we can spy on them." Edd said this as he looked down, expecting to find his dim-witted friend, only to discover that he was gone.

"ED?!" Double D checked the room, and noticed that the front door was open. "Oooh, curse that boy!" He ran out the door and saw Ed down the road a ways, his legs having become jets of flame.

Edd screamed out, "ED, GET BACK HERE!" and ran as fast as he could. Surprisingly, he caught up with Ed within a second. "How did that happen?" he asked himself, "That's not important, however; I've got to stop Ed!"

He shouted, "Ed, what do you think you're doing?!"

Still keeping a serious face, Ed stared dead ahead at the car's path; he replied to Edd, "I have to stop the bad man, Double D! He's going to do bad things, I know it!"

"Confound his simple mind; he's not going to listen to me!" Edd tried to get his friend to stop, but nothing could sway him, not even the promise of buttered toast in gravy. Having enough of this, the surprisingly fast Edd shot himself in front of Ed, and held out his hand to stop the dim-witted boy; what happened next surprised the both of them.

Once Edd raised his hand, a miniature cyclone burst forth from his palm, and threw Ed into the air; he fell to the ground a several yards away, with a sickening thud.

"Oh my goodness! Ed, are you okay?!" Edd screamed as he flew to his friend's side.

Ed lifted his head, and groggily said to the other Ed, "You're a handshum man, and so's your twin brother!"

Chuckling, Edd replied, "Well, glad to see you're all right, Ed." He stooped over to pick the other boy up, and said to him, "Now, what say we get home, and I'll fix you some nice buttered toast, hmm?"

Slowly rising to his feet, Ed said, "But Double D, I have to stop the bad man from doing bad things!"

Edd decided that he was just wasn't getting anywhere with Ed, so he figured it would be best to placate the boy through other methods. "Okay Ed, we'll play your game; we'll go after those two, and watch them. THAT'S IT, though. Anything else and we are out of there, got that?"

"10-4, good buddy!"

"Good. Now, how do we follow him without making too much noise?"

Ed shot his hand up in the air, and said, "Oh, oh, I know!"

"Yes, Ed?"

"We can fly!"

"…Fly."

"Yup!"

Edd smacked his forehead and told his friend, "Ed, you realize that only you can fly?"

Said boy only chuckled as he said to his friend, "You can fly too, Double D! You can use the wind!"

"You think so?"

"Try it try it try it!"

"Fine! But I'm not sure this will work…" Edd spread his arms apart, and held them out from his sides; concentrating on the energy that dwelt inside his body, he tried to summon it into his hands again. Feeling a spark in his mind, he opened his eyes to find that the entire world seemed a shade of blue. The boy looked down at his hands, and they were aflame with the same energy. The power was returning to him.

"Okay, Ed, I think I've got it. Let's see..." He focused the power so that he felt it surging out of his entire body, swirling faster and faster until it became an actual tornado.

"YEAH DOUBLE D! THAT'S THE TICKET!"

Edd giggled out of nervousness and excitement. "Oh my, I feel so…strong!"

"Now fly, Double D! FLY!"

"O-Okay…" He pushed the tornado off the ground with his willpower, and found that the tornado did not grow the higher he went; it stayed focused around his waist, and covered the lower half of his body. Smiling widely at his discovery, Edd shouted out, 

"WOO-HOO!" and flew higher into the air; Ed followed his friend with smaller jets of fire coming from his legs.

Meanwhile, in one house in the cul-de-sac, Kevin West was trying to get to sleep, but found it difficult with all the noise going on outside. After covering his head with his pillow, plugging his ears with cotton and earplugs, and even turning heavy metal rock on his iPod. Finally, he could take it no more, so he threw his window open and shouted out, "SHUT UP, YA DO-" but was blown back by a gust of wind.

He scrambled to his feet, and stared at the sight before him: Ed Mason and Eddward Mardon were hovering in mid-air, Ed's legs having become pillars of fire, and Edd's body swallowed up in a tornado.

"No way…"

"All right, Ed, let's go follow Luke and see where he's headed!"

Ed got back into serious mode, and solemnly said, "Aye-aye, cap'n!"

The two boys flew high enough in the air so that they would not be seen by Luke, but low enough that they could keep an eye on the car. After a minute of flying, they found the car again, and followed it for about twenty minutes, until Edd saw that it was heading to a familiar place…

"The Goldenbloom Chemical Plant? Why would he be going there?"

Ed replied, "Bad things, Double D; bad things…"

The sports car below them stopped, so Ed and Edd ceased their flying, and hovered in the air. They saw Luke step out of the car (without Eddy, Double D noted with some relief), and watched as he made his way to the plant. Both boys slowly flew after the suspicious-acting man, making sure that he didn't do anything 'devious', as Ed put it.

He stopped at the entrance, where he moved toward the security guard's office; Luke removed a gun from his jacket pocket and shot the guard on duty. Edd's eyes bulged out of his head as he recoiled in horror: Eddy's brother had just murdered a man in cold blood.

"This can't be happening; this is the kind of stuff that only happens in comic books!" he screamed out. What just happened shook the boy to his core, and left a chill running through him.

Ed shushed his friend and grabbed him from behind in order to silence him. As the boy in his grasp struggled, the stronger boy told him, "Shush, Double D! This is a bad guy we're dealing with, like Ozymandias or Captain Skull; of course he's going to do stuff like this. But guess what?"

The frantic Edd managed to calm down enough to ask, "W-What?"

"We've got superpowers, and we can use them to stop him! So let's do it!"

Edd had to balance the scenario in his head: if they fought against Luke, whose abilities they didn't know the full extent to, Ed could do almost anything with his body and Edd could manipulate the weather around him; that, plus the fact that it was two-on-one, gave them about, in Edd's mind, a 60-40 chance of success.

"Okay!" he boldly declared, "Let's get him!"

The boys flew down from the sky in an effort to dive-bomb Luke and catch him off-guard. Unfortunately, the dangerous man heard them coming, and so he dodged out of the way in the second before they hit.

He stood with his hands in pockets, a cigarette hanging from his lips; the man grew excited at the idea that there were people that had followed him. "Finally," he thought to himself, "Something to crush."

"Well, boys, you gave it a good try, but not good enough." he said this as he took the cigarette from his mouth and threw it away with a flick of his fingers.

Ed and Edd gathered their senses, and climbed out of the hole in the ground they had made. As Edd coughed up some dirt that had gotten into his mouth, Ed shot his arm out at Luke and shouted, "PREPARE TO MEET YOUR MAKER, VILE VILLAIN!"

Luke chuckled and said, "Not happenin' Ed." Suddenly, he vanished, and reappeared behind Ed. He pulled a weapon that resembled a cattle-prod from his jacket, and hit the shape-shifting boy with it, sending waves of pain through his entire body.

As Ed cried out, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" his entire body began to break down, until he was nothing more than a gold-and-purple puddle on the ground.

Edd shouted, "EEEEEDD!" and formed a tornado around himself as the fire returned to his eyes and hands. He glared at Luke and said, "You'll pay for this!"

"You can try," the man said, putting the cattle prod back, "But you'll only fail."

The weather-controlling Edd let out a savage war-cry, "RRRRRAAAARRRRRGGGHH!" and flew up into the air where Luke would not be able to reach him. He held his palm 

out in Luke's direction, and a bolt of lightning came crashing down from the heavens towards the evil man.

Luke evaded the blast in the nick of time, and thought to himself, "Hmm…this guy could be a problem…" He decided now was the best time to let loose.

In between dodging lightning and deadly hail, Luke shouted, "Not bad, Double D, but you're just going down like your idiot friend!"

With that, he leapt into the air, flying all the way up to Edd, who barely registered what happened before Luke punched him in the stomach and knocked him unconscious. Surprisingly, the criminal caught the younger boy with his arm, and held onto him as they fell back to earth.

Once they touched down on the ground, Luke dropped his beaten opponent on the ground and said, "You guys've grown." He pulled his gun out of his pocket, and aimed it at Double D's head, saying, "But I'm afraid you guys have seen too much. Shame I have to kill you."

"LUKE, WHAT THE &!?"

Luke spun around to find his younger brother Eddy watching him, his eyes as wide as dinner plates and his jaw on the ground.

"Eddy, it's not what it looks like, I swear!"

Eddy just stared at his brother and said, "I saw the whole thing, Luke: I saw you fry Ed and beat down Double D; I want to know why!"

Sighing, Luke told the younger O'Brian, "Look, Eddy, it's a long story, and one I don't have time for. Right now, I've got a job to do: we'll talk about this later, all right?" With that, he dashed off into the plant, with his brother in hot pursuit.

"Luke, WAIT!"

Eddy chased his brother straight to a giant hall with vats of chemicals placed throughout the room. He had so many questions to ask his brother, but they wouldn't mean anything if he didn't catch up to him!

"Luke, hold on!"

Luke simply ran faster, intending to keep far away from his brother. He hadn't wanted to drag his brother into this; truth be told, Luke had always hoped that Eddy would avoid being a member of the family business.

He turned his head and shouted, "There's nothing TO know, Eddy! Just leave me alone!"

Finally, as the two raced along a narrow bridge above a vat of teal-colored liquid, Luke tripped and fell on his face. "Damn," he thought to himself, "Why does this always happen during my high-speed pursuits?!"

He flipped himself up, and started to move again, but his blunder had given Eddy enough time to leap onto his brother, tackling him to the ground. Eddy grabbed at his brother and shouted, "Why did you do it?! Why did you beat down Ed and Double D; why didn't you kill them like you did the security guard?!"

Luke struggled against his brother and said, as loudly as he could, "You're not ready to learn yet! Now, GET OFF!" He swung an arm up, and knocked his brother off his body; unfortunately, his hit threw his brother off the bridge, and down into the vat.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"EDDYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

Eddy flew down into the vat, his body submerging into the strange mix of chemicals. He came up for air, coughing and gasping for air, and treaded the chemical mix, and called up to his brother, "Bro! Help me!"

"Dammit, this wasn't what I intended to happen at all." Luke thought to himself as he pulled another tool out of his jacket.

He called down to his brother, "Eddy! Grab on!" and shot a metal cable down to the vat. Eddy grabbed onto the cable, and Luke recoiled it, drawing the young boy out.

Once Eddy was out, however, Luke hit him in the neck with chop of his hand. "Sorry, Eddy," the man thought to himself, "I didn't mean for this to happen to you."

As he carried his brother on his shoulder, Luke lit another cigarette and took a long drag on it. He blew out a puff of smoke and said, "Well, guess I've gotta take these kids home…"

The next morning, Eddy shot up in his bed, having been startled by a dream he had last night. He sat there gasping, and said to himself, "Geez, what was that?!"

Suddenly, Eddy felt a stirring in the bed next to him, and he looked over to see that his friends were laying on either side of him, Ed on the right, Edd on the left. Growling, Eddy shouted, "GET OUT OF MY BED!" and shoved the two boys out of his bed.

As the two boys crashed down onto the floor, they woke up to the sound of Eddy's screaming. Edd rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and groggily asked, "What's the matter, Eddy?"

His question was answered for him when he saw that Eddy's arms were extended to a greater length than before. His arms looked like hoses, swinging madly in the air as the boy tried to grasp the situation.

As Ed started screaming and Edd began to shriek in terror, Eddy cried out the one phrase that seemed most appropriate:

"HOLY SH-"

_What has happened to Eddy? What's the deal with Luke? Who will be the next to gain powers in the cul-de-sac? Why am I asking you all these questions?! Find out in the next installment of _ED JUSTICE!


	4. Chapter 4: Last ED of Krypton

_"Good evening, I'm Tom Tucker with Channel 5 news. We now go live to Ollie Williams with a recap of the events in the fan-fiction Ed Justice. What's happened so far, Ollie?"_

_"ED CAN SHAPE-SHIFT!"_

_"How'd that happen?"_

_"ATE A RADIOACTIVE ROCK!"_

_"Then what?"_

_"EDD GOT STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!"_

_"And how did this affect him?"_

_"HE CHANGES THE WEATHER!"_

_"So, what's Eddy up to?"_

_"BROTHER CAME BACK!"_

_"What happened there?"_

_"BROTHER'S A CROOK!"_

_"And?"_

_"EDDY GOT POWERS!"_

_"Thanks, Ollie. And now, we return to the story, in progress…"_

--

**Ed Justice**

By The Mauve Lantern

**Chapter 4: The Last ED of Krypton**

It's midnight, and the young residents of Peach Creek are all asleep, dreaming pleasant dreams, except for one. A young girl stirs in her sleep, her eyes clenched tight; she mumbles in her sleep, "No…no…stay back…get away from them…"

_A little blonde-haired girl, only four years old, is on her knees, crying, as the flames around her raise higher and higher into the night. No one can hear her crying, because there is no one alive; everybody in the building is dead. They were all murdered… _

_It was just a regular night at the Philip J. Frye Orphanage: she had felt thirsty, and went to go get some water; she felt herself faint on her way to the bathroom, and had just woken up a moment ago. But what had happened? Was it the Bogeyman that Miss Evelyn spoke about to bad children, or was it something else?_

_She couldn't stand the sight anymore, so she got up and ran; she ran as fast as she could, not caring where she went._

_As she ran, a voice called out to her, saying, "You cannot run from fate, child. This was all your doing; never will you be rid of this. Run as you might, this will happen again, in due time. On your fourteenth birthday…the power you hold will be unleashed."_

_The girl screamed, "Get away fwom me! Weave me awone!"_

"_You cannot run from fate…Nazz-ira El-roj…"_

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Nazz Zor'ell shoots up in her bed, a terrible nightmare waking her from slumber. It's not the first time she's had the nightmare; on the contrary, she's had it ever since she was about four or five years old. Did it mean anything? She certainly didn't remember anything from that time in her life, but she was sure that she hadn't come from an orphanage and she wasn't an orphan.

Nazz shook her head, and said, "Don't think about it too much, Nazz," while she got up and went to the bathroom. When she got there, she began to fish through her medicine, and found the sleeping pills the doctor had recommended she take; she popped in the usual two pills, and took a drink of water to swallow the pills.

When she got back to bed, she told herself, "I'll talk with Mom in the morning about this whole thing…" and then she fell into a dreamless sleep, which was better than one plagued by nightmares.

The day was June 5th, 2008; Nazz was twelve, and her 14th birthday was a year and two months away.

_A few hours later, at the O'Brian residence…_

Eddy was waving his elongated arms like a madman, wondering how in the world this could have happened to him. "DOUBLE D!" he shouts, "WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME!?"

"I-I'm not sure, Eddy! Maybe something happened last night; can you remember anything happening to you?"

The shortest Ed suddenly remembered what had gone down last night:

_Finally, as the two raced along a narrow bridge above a vat of teal-colored liquid, Luke tripped and fell on his face. "Damn," he thought to himself, "Why does this always happen during my high-speed pursuits?!"_

_He flipped himself up, and started to move again, but his blunder had given Eddy enough time to leap onto his brother, tackling him to the ground. Eddy grabbed at his brother and shouted, "Why did you do it?! Why did you beat down Ed and Double D; why didn't you kill them like you did the security guard?!"_

_Luke struggled against his brother and said, as loudly as he could, "You're not ready to learn yet! Now, GET OFF!" He swung an arm up, and knocked his brother off his body; unfortunately, his hit threw his brother off the bridge, and down into the vat._

"_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"_

"_EDDYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"_

_Eddy flew down into the vat, his body submerging into the strange mix of chemicals._

The boy pointed his finger into the air, and said, "This must have happened when I fell into that vat of gunk at the science lab; it's the only thing out of the ordinary that happened to me!"

"Just like Joker, Eddy?" Ed, the resident comic aficionado, asked.

"Sure, Ed, sure. Double D, how do we fix this?"

Edd held his hands out to calm his friend, and told him, "Just try to relax Eddy. Try to imagine your body returning to normal shape; focus on making your arms shorter."

Eddy closed his eyes, and sure enough, he felt his arms shrinking, growing smaller, although not in the way he wanted…

"Eddy, your arms are getting thinner!"

He opened his eyes, and saw that his arms were now about the diameter of a twig. "AAAAAHHHHH!" he screamed, and suddenly, his arms returned to their ordinary length and width. The boy stared at them, and again imagined them long and noodle-like, as they had been a minute ago. Right before his eyes, they changed, growing to the point where they stretched all the way outside the room.

The shortest Ed marveled at the sight, and then imagined his arms returning to a normal length. Sure enough, his arms snapped back like coiled springs, throwing Eddy back a few feet when they returned. Undeterred, Eddy scrambled to his feet and said to his friends, "Ed, Double D, do you realize what this means?!"

"It means you have superpowers like me and Ed?" Edd guessed.

"EDDY'S A SUPERHERO!" Ed shouted as he threw his arms into the air.

"Yeah, yeah, that's cool too. But I'M INVINCIBLE!" Eddy shouted as he stretched himself out into a flat panel.

Edd stared at his friend, bewildered by his actions, and asked, "…Invincible, Eddy?"

"Yeah, the way it see it is this: I'm rubber, so most anything will bounce off of me, and not hurt me at all! It's just like Ed's comic books!"

"And you're sure about this?"

"Absolutely. C'mon, let's go down to the junkyard and try out our powers!" Eddy said as he ran to get some clothes on.

Ed was still running around, exclaiming how the three of them had superpowers, but Edd began to tremble in his shoes. "B-But Eddy," he said, nervous as can be, "If we leave to go test our powers, we'll be…skipping school!"

"Earth to Sockhead: we're already late! Look at the time!"

Edd took a glance at the clock in Eddy's room; it read 9:27. "GOOD LORD, WE'RE DREADFULLY LATE!"

"Yep," Eddy said as he pulled on a pair of pajama pants and a tank-top, "Now, go home and get changed; we're gonna be stretching our super muscles, Double D!"

"SUPER MUSCLES!" Ed shouted as he changed into lightning and flew around the room.

"EEEEDDDDDD!"

--

It's now 9:30 in the morning, and Nazz is at her locker, gathering her books for her next class; next up is Math class, which would be the most boring class on Earth if Double D weren't in her class. The smartest Ed really was a genius, and he was much, MUCH smarter than the teacher, which he displayed to the class on a regular basis by constantly correcting Mr. Martini whenever he missed a step or did a problem incorrectly.

Then, after that would be PE, which at least gave her the benefit of exercise, but it too was a very boring class, with the exception of Eddy and Kevin. The two boys were always trying to show each other up, even though Kevin didn't have to, since he was a teacher's aide and all. Still, those boys would compete at everything, making the class a lot more entertaining.

Her last class for the day involved all the Eds, but it was the one that Ed Mason really stood out in: Art class. All the children of the Peach Creek cul-de-sac took the class at the same time, and it usually devolved into some realm of chaos at some point or another, depending on whether or not Kevin and Eddy had gotten over their feud in PE. Typically, things would start off well, until the teacher turned her back and put on some music, at which point Eddy and Kevin would begin throwing paint/clay/papier-mâché at the other, and then the Kanker sisters would join in and soon the whole room was caught up in the brouhaha.

When things were peaceful, it was interesting to see what every child drew; it has been said that a person's soul came out in their artwork, and Nazz believed this to be true, for the most part.

Jimmy's artwork displayed how much of a little kid he still was, considering most of his drawings involved cute things; the pictures done by Sarah belied her true nature: they were usually cutesy pictures that showed animals or landscapes.

Kevin wasn't much of an "art guy", so he usually just scribbled on the paper, which revealed a, surprisingly, simple guy with ordinary desires in life; Johnny, on the other hand, created art that was very…bizarre, and displayed, for all the world to see, his odd nature.

Rolf had no troubles in art class, and actually did okay in the class, his artwork unveiling his love of animals and of nature as a whole; Nazz frequently drew from her dreams from the previous night for ideas, which made her pictures "creative", as the teacher would always put it.

The Kanker sisters, despite having somewhat similar personalities, all had extremely different art styles: May's was a more classical style, allowing her to excel at such things as painting and sculpture; Marie's had a very gritty, grunge look to it, making it perfect for t-shirt designs and sketches that filled her notebook; Lee was very hands-on in her style, and she did best when she was working with clay or some such material, allowing her to shape her own creations.

By and far, however, the Eds were the most interesting to observe, since they had such entirely different and varied styles, expressed in many different ways. Ed was very free-spirited, so his pictures were always incredibly random, drawn in some erratic, yet intriguing visuals; Edd took a more attentive approach to his work, and while it wasn't always the best stuff, it was always clear what his message was going into the project; Eddy had the attention span of a gnat, and this showed in his stuff, which always looked rushed and sloppy. The teacher wasn't really happy with the stuff the boys came up with, but Nazz thought they had some incredible work.

Today, however, the Eds were absent, which made her classes all the more boring; the other kids either thought nothing of it, or they were ecstatic at not being fleeced of their allowance. Nazz, on the other hand, was bored out of her mind until PE class.

Once she got to class and changed into her gym clothes, she ran out onto the football field, where she saw Kevin sitting on the bleachers, deep in thought. She ran up to him and said, "Hey, Kev, what's up?"

"Oh, Nazz!" He must have really been thinking hard, because he didn't even see her run up.

"Whatcha up to?"

He shuffled his feet for a second as he debated whether or not to tell Nazz what he had seen last night.

_Kevin West was trying to get to sleep but found it difficult with all the noise going on outside. After covering his head with his pillow, plugging his ears with cotton and earplugs, and even turning heavy metal rock on his iPod. Finally, he could take it no more, so he threw his window open and shouted out, "SHUT UP, YA DO-" but was blown back by a gust of wind._

_He scrambled to his feet, and stared at the sight before him: Ed Mason and Eddward Mardon were hovering in mid-air, Ed's legs having become pillars of fire, and Edd's body swallowed up in a tornado._

"_No way…"_

Finally, the red-capped boy looked at Nazz, and said to her, "Nazz, there's something I have to tell you. Something…weird."

"What do you mean, Kevin?"

"Well, last night, I saw something unreal; at first I thought it was a dream, but then I checked and it wasn't an-"

"Kev, just get to the point."

He took a deep breath, and said, "Nazz, I saw Double D and Ed flying: Double D had a tornado circling around his body, while Ed's legs were like…jet engines or something. I don't know what it was I saw, but I saw it."

Nazz hadn't been expecting that; she thought that she was the only one that knew that Ed had superpowers! Okay, she had to be cool, and just talk her way out of this…

"Geez, Kev, that's a pretty crazy dream you had!"

The boy frowned and shook his head as he said, "I know what I saw, Nazz; those dorks were flying in the air! You have to believe me!"

"Kevin, I'm sorry, but it just sounds like you had a weird and messed up dream. You've got to lighten up a little, y'know? I think you're getting too peeved about the Eds; next, you'll be saying, what, Eddy can stretch his body like rubber? Puh-LEEZE!

"Not to mention," she said as she patted his shoulder, "You've been overdoing it at school: staying up late studying, trying extra-hard at classes; you gotta slow down."

Kevin nodded his head as he listened to his friend's words of encouragement, and then he told her, "You're right Nazz: I HAVE been working pretty hard lately. Y'know what?"

"What?"

"After school today, I think I'm gonna take a nap. 'Cause I am REALLY tired…"

Nazz smiled and said, "That's great, Kev. A little sleep will do wonders for you!" She noticed a few of her friends calling to her from across the field, so she told Kevin, "Okay, I gotta go. I hope you feel better, Kevin!" and then she ran off to go chat with her friends.

Kevin waved to her, and then he furrowed his brow as he thought to himself, "Something's not right here, I know it. I'm gonna get to the bottom of this if it's the last thing I do!"

He stared off in the direction of the cul-de-sac, and asked, "What are you dorks up to now?"

--

"Okay Double D, here's the plan: we're gonna see just what we can do; we're gonna get really, REALLY good at it, and then we're gonna get filthy RICH!" Eddy told his friend as he dragged him to the junkyard.

"But Eddy, I don't WANT to do this!" Edd shouted as he tried to fight back against his stronger friend. "We should be in school right now; this isn't the time to be doing this!"

Ed skipped merrily along, and said to his capped friend, "Come on, Double D! We need to work hard and play hard if we want to be SUPER EDS!"

Eddy shushed his friend and told him, "SHH! You wanna get taken off the net?!" Then, he turned back to Edd and said, "There's no time like the present, Sockhead: we've all gotten superpowers in, like, three days; this ain't natural, and it sure as heck ain't normal. Something's gotta be done!"

At last, Double D relented, and simply decided that he wouldn't be able to fight back against Eddy. Also, he DID want to try out his powers, and see just how he could control the weather…

After a short walk from Eddy's house, the boys made it to the land of trash and debris known as The Junkyard, and they began to spread out, to make sure any stray attacks didn't hit their friends.

"All right, fellas; let's GO!" Eddy hollered as he stretched his arm back and shot it forward at a high speed, blowing a pile of garbage apart in the process.

Edd turned to ask Ed a question, but saw that he was currently smashing through the junkyard with arms made of steel. The smartest Ed sighed and said, "Oh well," as he focused his power into making a tornado around his body. However, THIS time, Edd wanted to test something out: he shrank the cyclone around him, making it no wider than his feet; after this, he changed the location of the winds, so that they remained underneath his body. From a distance, Edd looked like he was standing in the air, with nothing supporting him.

He tried walking, and found it just as easy to do in the air as it was on the ground; taking it even further, Edd changed the shape of the wind so that he was riding it like a surfboard. "Steady…steady…" the boy told himself as he kept himself from falling by creating an air pocket around his body. As he flew through the air, Edd began to smile and laugh, performing all sorts of tricks and stunts on his board made of wind.

Down on the ground, Ed was having a blast as he shifted his body into anything he could think of, from a comet to an icicle and vines to wind. The boy was laughing his head off as he smashed through an old car with arms made of gold, and soon he was imagining everything was like one of his superhero flicks.

"Take THAT, Black Manta!" he hollered as he set fire to a discarded rug that vaguely resembled a manta ray. "Have at thee, Toyman!" the boy shouted as he tossed a My Little Buddy doll into the air, and smashed it with a hammer arm.

His attention was then turned to the giant, menacing figure of a pile of bolts, screws and other assorted metal objects. "Prepare to meet your MAKER, Shrapnel!" Ed screamed as he jumped at the pile of metal, his body shifting into a brick wall.

Eddy was focusing his attention on another mound of garbage, and before he could attack it, he was hit with a spray of nuts and bolts. Turning to the source, he shouted at Ed, "Watch where you're getting your tools, Monobrow!"

The tallest Ed poked his head out of the pile of metal, and said to Eddy, "Sorry Eddy!"

"Check this out!" the greediest Ed told his friend as he whipped his arms back in an arc, then he began to spin, creating a dangerous whirlwind of violence as he knocked away everything within 20 feet of his body.

Ed climbed out of the screws and clapped his hands in amazement as he shouted, "BRAVO! BRAVO, BRAVISSIMO!"

Eddy sarcastically bowed, and said, "Thank you, you're too kind!" then he looked around and asked, "Where'd Double D go?" His question was answered by a large clap of thunder, as a bolt of lightning came down from the sky at a certain spot in the landfill.

"I'm guessin' he's over that-a-way," Ed said as he changed his legs into jets of fire, "COME ON, EDDY!"

"Hold yer horses, Ed!" Eddy twisted his legs until they were roughly shaped like springs; satisfied, he bounced a couple of times on the ground, then shot himself into the air as he leapt into the sky.

The two of them made their way to the spot where the lightning had appeared, and found a slightly-charred Edd, still hovering in the air, as he held a ball of lightning in the palm of his right hand.

"Ed, Eddy! Look at what I can DO!" their friend shouted as he held his hand up and released the stored lightning. The bolt burst from his palm and obliterated a large hill of garbage.

The two other Eds could only gape in awe as they stared at the area where the garbage once was; now, there was absolutely nothing, not a thing left.

"Wwwwwwoooooooooowwwww," Eddy said as he gazed at the destruction his friend had caused. Then, he began to wonder if he could make a profit off this.

"And that's not all!" Edd told his friends as he waved his arms, "I can do so much more; look!" He pointed a finger at another pile trash, and a stream of water fell from the sky with enough intensity to blow it apart.

"Wait until you get a load of THIS!" He held his hands close together, as though he was holding a baseball, and the blue fire began to sparkle as it glistened off the snowball that formed in Edd's hand. Giggling mischievously, the boy threw the snowball at Eddy, knocking him off the mountain of garbage he was sitting on.

"WOW, Double D!" Ed shouted as he applauded his friend's display of power, "That was so cool!"

Edd looked down at his hands, and modestly said, "Yes, they are pretty cool, aren't they?"

"WE'RE GONNA BE RICH!" Eddy screamed as he threw himself back up onto the garbage heap.

"How now, brown cow?"

"We're gonna be PROFESSIONAL HEROES! This'll be GREAT!"

Edd was the only one to object, and saying, "Eddy, PLEASE! I'd rather we kept this a secret; who knows what would happen to us if people discovered that we actually HAVE superpowers?"

Eddy paused and put his finger to his chin as he lost himself deep in thought. He had to weigh out the positives and negatives: on the one hand, they'd be doing good for the community; on the other hand, people might be afraid of them. They could be something big, or they could wind up in a test tube somewhere in Area 51…

Finally, he relented and said, "Fine, we'll keep things secret for now, okay?" He then climbed down from the garbage pile, and told his friends, 'Get back to work! We've got a lot of ground to cover before we can call it a day!"

Edd smiled as his friends went back to what they were doing, and he returned to studying the limits of his powers.

Their training was interrupted by a deep, guttural roar, which shook the very ground that Eddy stood on. The three boys turned to the source, and discovered it to be a boy, roughly their age, that looked royally pissed off.

This boy was wearing a pair of jeans and a black sweatshirt (despite it being June) that had a red, upside-down S in the middle of a red outline diamond. His skin was chalky-white, and was cracking and peeling in many places; messy black hair hung down in his eyes, which he didn't even bother to brush aside. He had glowing red eyes, and his fists were clenching and unclenching, as though he were ready to fight.

"Who the heck is that?!" Eddy asked Edd as he got off the ground.

"I'm not sure," the boy replied, "I've never seen him before!"

Ed, on the other hand, was floating in the air, chewing on his fingernails as he said, "B-B-B-BIZARRO!"

Both of his friends turned to him and asked, "Bizarro?"

"He's one of Superman's enemies! But he's not a kid; maybe it's Match? No, he doesn't wear a sweatshirt…"

As Ed drifted off into Comic book Land, Edd asked the strange boy, "Can we help you?"

The boy growled, and shouted, "You puny superheroes no match for WEIRDO! Weirdo crush you like bugs you are!"

"What did he say?!" Eddy shouted.

Edd kept a wary eye on Weirdo, and said, "I think he said his name is Weirdo, and that he's…going to crush us?"

"NO TALKING!" Weirdo said as he flew into the air, "Me hate to talk! Me want crush you NOW!" He flew straight for Eddy and threw a punch at him; Eddy snickered, and took the blow. Sure, it hurt like crazy, but he just absorbed the blow and felt Weirdo stretch his body back until…

BOING! The monstrous boy shot back in the direction he came from, and landed in woods, not too far from the Eds.

"That was a close one!" Ed said as he flew back down to the ground.

Edd glided over to Eddy and asked him, "Goodness, are you okay, Eddy?"

"Yeah," the shorter boy replied, "I'm okay; it stings a little, but I'm fine."

"Good. Now, let's get out of here before-"

"RRRRAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!" Red lasers shot out of Weirdo's eyes as he tore up the forest and flew up into the air.

"Oh, COME ON!" Eddy shouted, stretching himself so that he grew twenty feet into the air. He was SO not in the mood for this guy. Weirdo flew straight at Eddy, but this time, before he collided with Eddy's plastic skin, he shot a laser beam from his eyes at the boy's chest.

The lasers heated Eddy's skin, to the point where it began to bubble, and he collapsed in a heap, shrieking in pain, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!"

"EDDY!" Edd and Ed shouted as they rushed to their friend's aid. The brilliant Edd turned to Ed and told him, "Ed, I need you to go and keep Weirdo busy; I'll try and help Eddy's burn."

"Got it, Double D!" Ed rocketed up into the sky, where he changed his torso into a mass of fire, his right arm into a giant mace, and his other arm into pure metal. "PREPARE TO MEET YOUR MAKER, BIZARRO!"

"Me no am Bizarro!" Weirdo growled, "Me am WEIRDO!"

The two boys flew at each other and their blows connected, knocking both to the ground, with Ed shaking his head, trying to gather his senses. Before he knew it, Weirdo was on him again, delivering a beating; Ed was able to shake him off by increasing the flames on his body. While the monstrous boy howled in pain, Ed smacked him in the head with his mace-arm, sending him flying across the junkyard.

"That's how we do it on EARTH, o bizarre one!" Ed shouted as he charged at Weirdo, ready to deliver another blow. Just before he punched his opponent, however, Ed's punch was blocked by the strange boy.

Weirdo glared at Ed, and said, "Me…am…Weirdo!" and then he blew frigid air at his enemy, freezing Ed in a block of ice.

Before he could smash the ice, he was blown away by a tornado; Edd flew over to Ed's side and cried, "EEEEEDDDDD!" The weather-manipulating Edd created a mini-sun in his hands, and began to use its warmth to thaw his friend out.

A few seconds later, Ed was partially unfrozen, but Weirdo had gathered his wits again, forcing Double D to go one-on-one with this monster. Edd dodged each of his blows and occasionally blinded the menace with a brilliant ray of sunlight, while he would retreat and unfreeze Ed a little more.

Finally, Weirdo caught onto Edd's trick, and he laughed uproariously, saying, "You am funny, weather-boy! You think you have Weirdo beaten, but it am Weirdo who crush you!" The strange-speaking boy shut his eyes, and shouted, "Me have super-senses, so me can hear you coming, and me can also see what you am doing with X-ray vision!"

"Oh dear!" Edd thought to himself, "How do I stop this behemoth?!" He didn't have time to think, as Weirdo flew right at him; Edd quickly flew to the side, dodging the monster boy's insane charge. "Wait a moment, I could use THAT attack!" he said to himself.

"What attack am you using, Sockhat?" Weirdo shouted as he looked in Edd's direction.

"You'll see, Weirdo, you'll see…" Edd held his right hand to the sky, and a bolt of lightning struck his hand and was shaped into a ball of crackling energy. He held his palm open at Weirdo and shouted, "THIS IS FOR ED AND EDDY!" as he released the pent-up lightning at the powerful boy.

The energy fried Weirdo, and knocked him unconscious; Edd quickly flew over to Ed's side and unfroze the rest of his body. Ed fell over, but his friend caught him and asked, "Ed, are you okay? Can you hear me?!"

His eyes opened slowly, until they were half-open, and he said, "Happy Birthday!"

"Oh, thank goodness you're all right!" Edd cried out as he embraced his friend in a tight hug. When they separated, he asked Ed, "I need you to help me, Ed."

"Whatsa matter, Double D?"

Edd stood up and brushed himself off, saying, "Grab something heavy and wrap it around Weirdo, while I check on Eddy."

"Roger, Double D!" the dim-witted boy said as he rocketed through the air.

Double D went to go see how Eddy was doing, and found him sitting up, albeit in pain. "Eddy! Are you okay?!

The boy gasped a little, but he said, "Sure, never better. 'Cept now I know what a Thanksgiving turkey feels like!"

"The cold water I poured on your burn should help, but we'll head back to my house and clean it up with some ointment."

"Yippee."

Ed returned a moment later with Weirdo wrapped up in metal chains; he threw Weirdo onto a pile of debris, and said, "Well, that takes care of that!"

"I agree," Edd replied, "Now, let's get home and clean Eddy up while I get you some hot soup, Ed!"

"YAY!" the boy shouted as he skipped along to Edd's house.

Edd smiled as he watched his friend, who had been frozen alive only a few minutes ago, run off, and he said, "Lovable lump…"

Unbeknownst to the boys, Weirdo would be waking up in a few hours, and Nazz would be heading home with a headache around that time…

At about noon, Nazz began to feel sick. She told her teachers that she couldn't concentrate, so they sent her to the nurse's office; she wasn't able to figure out what was wrong with the girl, so the kind old lady sent Nazz home, telling her to take the day off.

The blonde girl didn't know what was wrong with her: her eyes felt like they were burning up, she felt cold inside her body, her muscles felt strained and tight, and overall she felt light-headed. What could be the problem?

As she turned into the cul-de-sac, she saw the Eds sitting out on Edd's porch, watching the clouds go by. She rode up on her bike and asked, "Hey guys, what're you doing here? Were you cutting class?"

"Nope," Eddy said as he yawned, "We've been working on getting our superpowers honed."

"Superpowers? But, Eddy, you and Double D don't have-" Nazz was interrupted by Eddy, who stretched his arms five feet above his head. "Whoa," she said as she stared in awe, "What happened to you?"

Eddy just picked at his fingernails and told her, "Eh, I fell into a pot of chemicals last night, woke up with my arms stretching halfway across the room. No biggee."

"…And you're…okay with this?" Nazz asked. Normally, Eddy tried to fit in with the crowd, and didn't do many things out of the norm.

"We sure ARE!" Ed shouted as he stared at a bird that flew over his head, "And we've gotten really good with our powers! See?" The boy began changing his body into countless different things.

Nazz laughed and said, "That's so COOL, Ed!" Then she turned to Edd and asked, "Double D, have you got any powers?"

"Y-Y-Yes," the boy said to her as he made a ball of sunlight in his hands.

"That is AWESOME, Double D!" she shouted as she clapped her hands together.

"Hey, what about me n' Ed?" Eddy asked indignantly as he pointed a finger at himself.

"All of you guys rock!" Nazz said as she smiled. "This is so cool; I can't believe I'm talking to some real superheroes!"

The Eds looked at each other, saying to each other, "Yeah, I guess we ARE superheroes now, after what happened this morning."

"Oh, that reminds me," Nazz asked, "There were some explosions at around 10 this morning; was that you guys?"

Edd spoke up first, and said, "W-W-Well, th-that's a fffunny story. Y-Y'see, we were tr-training, and-"

A familiar roar interrupted the boy's sentence, and soon, Weirdo had returned in all his unbridled fury. Of course, this was Nazz's first time seeing the villain, so she screamed and backed away, saying, "What is that thing?!"

"Me am no nothing," Weirdo told her, "Me am WEIRDO, and me crush puny boys!" He threw a punch at Edd, but was knocked away by Ed's brick arm.

As Eddy and Ed pounced on Weirdo, Edd grabbed Nazz's arm and said, "We have to go!"

"Are they going to be all right?!"

"They're still a little sore from fighting Weirdo earlier, so I don't know how long Ed and Eddy can last, but I can only hope that it's long enough to get you to safety!"

Unfortunately, a few seconds later, his friends flew over his and Nazz's heads, followed by a blast of intense heat at his back. "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Edd screamed as he fell to the ground in pain.

"DOUBLE DEEEEEEE!" Nazz tried to pick him up, but Weirdo had grabbed her arm and hoisted her into the air as he flew up to the sky.

"You am pretty girl," Weirdo said as he held her in the air, "That's why me am have to kill you. Pretty girl no like Weirdo, but Weirdo love pretty girl; so, pretty girl go die."

Now, they were high above the ground, easily a hundred or so feet in the air; a fall from this height would kill Nazz for sure. Weirdo let go of Nazz's arm, and she began to plummet from the sky, screaming every inch of the way.

"OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!" she screamed in her head, "I'M GOING TO DIE!"

She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the ground catch her, and she waited for the feel of the hard pavement; surprisingly, it never came. Nazz opened her eyes a crack, and saw that the ground was at least a foot away, maybe more. The girl opened her eyes all the way, and found that she was floating above the ground. But how?

Ed and Eddy were unconscious, and Edd was in no condition to do anything; how was she floating? Then she realized what was going on:

"I-I'm flying?"

Sure enough, Nazz was flying; something inside her had woken up, and now, Weirdo was in for a world of pain…

The monstrous boy growled and shouted, "Why pretty girl no die?! PRETTY GIRL MUST DIE!"

"Not today," Nazz said as she flew straight up to Weirdo and punched him in the face. The punch actually sent him hurtling through the air, and he almost crashed into one of the houses below. The blonde girl gazed in wonder at her fist, almost not believing what had happened.

But there was still business to attend to, as Weirdo was not finished. He got off the ground, and flew at Nazz, shouting, "THAT HURT, PRETTY GIRL! NOW, WEIRDO MAKE YOU PAY!"

Nazz scoffed and told the boy, "We'll see about that." Once he was close enough, Nazz kicked him, right where it hurts the most.

Weirdo howled in agony, and bent over in his intense pain; using this as a chance to fight back, Nazz brought her elbow down on his back, and sent Weirdo down into the street; he passed out on impact.

Amazed at what had happened, Nazz dropped down to the ground, the job done. She picked up her fallen opponent by the leg, and began to spin around, until she was going so fast a dust cloud formed around them; once she reached the right speed, the girl let go, and sent Weirdo flying, throwing him for miles.

She heard a groan, and Nazz remembered that the Eds had been injured protecting HER. "Double D, are you okay?!" she asked as she flew over to his side.

"Yes, I should be all right," he said as he lay on the ground, "I just need to focus on making it rain cold water on my back." A few seconds later, a small stream of water appeared out of nowhere, and doused Edd's burnt back.

"Ahhh, that's much better," the boy said as he got up with help from Nazz. Then he turned to her and told her, "You were incredible, Nazz!"

"Really?!"

"Indubitably! And we'll talk about it momentarily; right now, we have to go help Ed and Eddy."

The two of them walked over to their friends and brought them inside Nazz's house, Nazz carrying Eddy across her shoulder, Edd carrying Ed on a platform of wind.

_What has caused Nazz's terrific transformation? And what of her nightmares; are they omens for things to come? Will Kevin discover the truth behind the Eds? And who will be the next to receive the superhero treatment? Find out in the next incredible installment of: _ED JUSTICE!


	5. Chapter 5: The Fastest ED Alive!

**Ed Justice**

By The Mauve Lantern

**Chapter 5: The Fastest ED Alive!**

At the far end of a cave, a monster lies in wait, plotting his escape from this hellish prison he has been put in. This was not fair! He had been gifted with powers unlike most of his species, and for that he was condemned to a life of being treated like some heinous criminal.

"Jo-Jo!" a man calls, "Jo-Jo! Come get your breakfast!"

Growling, the young gorilla thinks in his mind, "It's Mukuro, you son of a pig; the name is Mukuro!" before plodding over to Chris, the zookeeper.

Chris reaches into a barrel and pulls out a bundle of fruit, saying to Jo-Jo in a sing-song voice, "Now, Jo-Jo, if you can be good today, I'll give you a whole bunch of yummy bananas!"

The young gorilla grunts and thinks to itself, "I'm going to kill you someday, Christopher. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday."

After pulling out all of Jo-Jo's breakfast, Chris tells the animal, "Well Jo, there y-" but is interrupted by a foul stench. "Wheeeooooo! Jo-Jo, when was the last time you cleaned yourself?"

"How dare you, you pink-skinned oaf! Let me tell you something," Mukuro screams in his head, "A punch to the chest feels the same for any species, so stick a sock in it!"

Of course, while Mukuro is plotting to annihilate his ignoramus of a keeper, Chris thinks that Jo-Jo is simply growling from lack of food. "Here, Jo-Jo," the naïve man says as he offers a banana to the gorilla, "It's time for nummies!"

Mukuro stares blankly at the man in front of him, and asks himself, "Why, God, why me?!"

--

Meanwhile, miles away, Kevin West is riding his bike home from school, his heart heavy with concern for his best friend, Nazz Zor'ell. She left school early, complaining about all these problems, and had looked pretty bad as well. However, this wasn't the only thing that was on Kevin's mind. The boy was still wondering about what he had seen the other evening.

Last night, Kevin had been trying to get to sleep, but was unable to for some reason. As he lay twisting and turning on his bed, his sleep was deterred even more so by the noise outside, he could take no more. Needing to vent his frustration, Kevin had thrown open his window, intending to scare away those annoying Eds; instead, he had seen Ed Mason and Eddward Mardon flying through the air. Mason was being propelled by streams of fire that came from his legs, while Double D was held in the air with a small tornado that wrapped around his legs.

"No way…" Kevin had muttered as he watched those dorks, to see just what they would do. They floated in the air for a minute before they shot off into the night, hot in pursuit of something.

Before he went back to bed, the red-haired boy pinched himself in order to see if he was dreaming; the slight pain he felt was enough to convince him otherwise. Kevin fell back upon his bed and decided, "Tomorrow, I'll find out the truth. There's something weird going on in Peach Creek, and I gonna find out what's up!"

Kevin had gone to school with the intent of asking Edd or Ed what had happened last night, but all three of the Eds were absent that day, much to his chagrin. He needed some questions answered NOW.

In gym class, he sought out Nazz's help in this matter; she was closest to the Eds, maybe she could help. When he told her his theory about the three dorks having superpowers, she had laughed it off, although she seemed a little…fake about it, like she was trying to hide something.

"Why would Nazz have to cover anything up?" Kevin asked himself. "Does she know something about those dorks?"

He shook his head furiously, and told the nagging voice in his head, "Nazz wouldn't hide something from me; we're friends!" Kevin peddled his bike home, going much faster than usual.

Along the way, he passed by the junkyard, which looked like a bomb had gone off in the center of it. "What the heck happened there?"

A feminine voice called to him, "KEVIN!" and the boy's mother came running up to him. Linda West was a lot like her son: hot-headed, impulsive, and strong; the only thing that separated the two of them was the fact that Linda was more compassionate. The older woman was in charge of the junkyard, which was usually a boring job, although today was an exception.

"Mom? Don't you work in town?" Kevin asked, "Why are you at the junkyard?"

His mother paused to wipe her brow, and she replied to her son, "I was called down because someone or something got in here and practically tore this place apart! Right now, I'm just surveying the damage, before the police arrive."

Curious, the red-haired boy asked his mother, "What could do this kind of damage?"

"Beats the heck outta me," the older woman tells Kevin, "It looks like there's wind damage done to the south gate, and Joey told me that the west side has been blown to pieces; whether it's from some drunken construction worker or not, we're not entirely sure."

Kevin sighed. His mother was taking this very well, considering she took care of the junkyard as if her life depended on it. Why was she being so calm about this?

"Mom, how can you be so calm about this?"

His mother just chuckled a little before she brushed a lock of red hair from her eyes. "Kevin, let me tell you a little secret: just as the good Lord giveth, the good Lord taketh away." When she looked at her son, she saw that the boy was confused by the passage. "It means that you should be happy with what you have in life, and never be too proud of what you are given, for it can only be swept away in an instant.

"The junkyard fence can be rebuilt, and I'm sure we can find enough garbage to replace what was destroyed. We'll just have to start over from scratch again; a little elbow grease here and there, some hard workin' men, and this place will be good as new. Just remember, Kevin: be happy, work hard, and you'll be rewarded."

Once again, Kevin sighed; he HATED when his mother had to preach to him. He mumbled, "Whatever," under his breath and turned his head down.

Noticing her son's attitude, Linda ruffled his hat before saying, "Head on home. I'll be there in an hour or so; I left a little treat for you on the counter, okay?" She bent down on kissed her son on the cheek before he sped off, complaining about how it wasn't cool to kiss him in front of the junkyard guys.

Kevin peddled as fast as he could, wanting to avoid any further embarrassment at the hands of his mother. Once he reached his house, he punched in the code for the garage, opening the door. The boy put his bicycle where it belonged on the bike rack and walked into the house, shutting the door behind him.

On the kitchen table was a plate of fresh-baked cookies, with a note from his mother that read: "Hope you had a great day, Kevin! These are for you and dad. ENJOY!" Kevin grumbled when he finished the note; his mother, for all her toughness, was too freaking jolly when it came to her own family. Grabbing a couple of cookies for himself, the boy made his way up to his room and threw off his shirt and baseball cap before plopping down in front of his computer.

After a few minutes of surfing the Internet, Kevin decided to call up Nazz and see how she was feeling. Reaching into his pocket for his cell phone, Kevin pulled it out and looked up Nazz's house phone.

"Hello?" a woman asked.

"Hi Mrs. Zor'ell, it's Kevin! Can I speak to Nazz?"

"Oh, I'm sorry dear; Nazz isn't here! She went down to the swimming hole with Ed, Eddward and Eddy. Kevin?"

Kevin wasn't listening anymore, as the phone had fallen from his hands. Nazz was OUT? With the EDS!? "No. Nonono, this can't be happening!" Fuming, Kevin put his hat and a tank-top on before he stomped down the stairs and out the door.

"I'm gonna MURDER those dorks!"

--

"Check it out, you guys! I'm FLYING!" Nazz shouted at the top of her lungs, flying through the air with such grace and dexterity as a bird. It had taken an hour or two of practice, but she had finally nailed it.

Down on the ground, Ed and Eddy clapped uproariously, while Edd hovered in the air, lacking any words, for once. "Nazz, that was so COOL!" Ed told the blonde girl. "You're like Supergirl!"

Eddy cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "For once, Lumpy's right; that was freakin' AWESOME!"

Nazz gave a wave of her hand and said, "Aww, thanks, guys!" before turning to Edd and asking him, "Double D? What'd you think?"

Edd was speechless, his brain fried from the sight he was just spectator to. Slowly, he came out of his trance, and he whispered, "B-B-Beautif-ful…"

"What was that, Double D?" Nazz asked, flying up close to him, "I couldn't hear you."

"Oh!" Edd gasped as he was shaken from his daydream. "Th-That was absolutely wonderful, Nazz! You've got everything down pat: your control, flawless; your grace and maneuverability, perfect; you've even managed to perform trick in mid-air! It's unbelievable that in only a short amount of time, you could-"

"Ease up, Sockhead," Eddy interrupted, "She only wanted your opinion, not the Magna Carta!" Edd blushed when he realized what he had done, and he tucked his head under his hat in slight shame.

"That's not nice, Eddy!" Nazz scolded him as she flew over to her instructor's side. "Besides, I want to hear everything that Double D has to tell me!" She pulled the hat up and away from his face and asked, "Double D, can you show me how you fly with that tornado again?"

He mumbled incoherently at first, but then the boy gathered enough courage to straighten up and say, "Okay, I'll do it." He stretched his arms a little and then cupped his hands in front of his chest; the blue flame sprang to life, and he shot into the air as the wind roared around him.

Nazz flew back to the ground and said to Eddy, "That is so cool!"

"Sure is!" the shorter boy replied, before grumbling, "Wish I could do that."

"Aww, is someone jeaaaaaaalous?" Ed grinned as he slid over next to Eddy.

He shouted, "SHUT UP, ED! I'm not jealous; I just wish I could have been more useful in the fight with Weirdo earlier." He bowed his head and said, "I managed to throw him into the forest, but that was just because he flew into my chest. I was taken out TWICE by his heat vision! How the heck am I supposed to stand up to that?!"

Reaching a hand out, Nazz told Eddy, "Don't worry about it, Eddy. Everybody has their moment to shine; I'm sure that yours is coming!"

A light blush ran across the boy's face as he replied, "Gee, thanks!"

Edd, tiring of exerting his power, lowered himself to the ground, where he joined his friends. "Well, what should we do now?" he asked, unsure of what they should do next.

"Oh! Oh! BOING! I've got an idea!"

"Yes, Ed?"

Ed looked at Nazz and suggested, "If Nazz is like Supergirl, maybe she has other powers!"

"What'chu talkin' 'bout, Ed?" Eddy asked.

"Yeah, Ed," Nazz looked to the boy for an answer, "What ARE you talking about?"

"Well, Supergirl can fly and has super strength, but she's also invincible; she can even shoot lasers from her eyes, and ice breath from her lungs!" Ed shouted excitedly. "Maybe Nazz can do all this stuff too!"

The girl giggled and told Ed, "That's silly, Ed; I don't have laser vi- BZZZZZZZZT!"

Her statement was interrupted by a blast of intense heat that shot from her eyes, taking out a tree behind Ed and Eddy. Luckily, the boys had ducked out of the way before they could come to harm; the tree, on the other hand, was not so fortunate.

Hesitantly, the two raise their heads and turned to see the damage done to the tree. It wasn't burnt to a crisp, nor was it disintegrated; it was actually aflame, with smoke billowing from it.

"Oh dear!" Edd flew over to the tree and summoned a stream of rain to douse out the tree, and a wind gale to dissipate the smoke. He then said to Nazz, "Maybe we should try this at a different location…"

"Good idea," was her reply, her face beet-red with embarrassment. She landed on the ground, and was followed by Edd.

"Let's go back to my basement; it should be safe there."

"Good idea, Sockhead." Eddy lazily smiled and put his hands behind his head. "We'll just destroy your basement instead!"

Ed ran ahead of the group, shouting, "BASEMENT PARTY!"

"Don't touch anything, Ed!" Edd hollered to Ed, though his warning went unheard by Ed and Eddy, who set out to tear the basement apart. "Oh, what's the use? They don't listen to me."

Nazz put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and told him, "Relax: they're just excited about this whole thing. To be honest, I'd like to see what else I can do!"

Smiling, Edd said, "W-Well then, we haven't a moment to lose!" and took off for his house, with Nazz in tow. None of the pre-teens had noticed a slight rustling in the bushes, caused by something rather large…

--

Kevin was, for lack of a better word, completely freaked out by what he had just been witness to. Not only could Edd fly in the air, he could also make rain fall! That wasn't even supposed to be possible!

And Nazz: what the heck was that!? How was she able to fly and shoot lasers from her eyes?! This was stuff that only happened in those geeky comic books that Ed read! One thing was for certain: "Those dorks have a lot of explaining to do."

Grabbing his bike, Kevin fixed his eyes into a stony glare as he rode through the woods and back into the cul-de-sac. "Why would Nazz lie to me?" he asked, "Is it because those Eds are keeping her from talking?! I'll murder 'em!"

He peddled quickly, and took a shortcut through the forest, to get to Edd's house quicker. All he could see was red; thoughts of dismemberment and laceration were springing into his mind. Those freaks have superpowers, and now they've dragged NAZZ into their freak world?! Never before had Kevin been so furious. He was so enraged, he didn't notice the UPS van barreling down the road until it was too late…

WHAM! KRRR-UUUNNNNNCCCHHHHH! He had jumped off the bike in the last second, but now he was without a ride. This day just kept getting better and better. Kevin made his way back to the cul-de-sac, where he proceeded to Double Dork's house, where he would wait for Nazz and the dorks to show up.

When he spotted them coming back, Kevin hid in the bushes again, in order to avoid detection; as he lay in waiting, he ground his teeth against each other, and continued to dream up elaborate plans to obliterate Ed, Edd and Eddy.

--

Back at the gorilla cage at the Springfield Zoo, Mukuro lay against the rocky wall, dreaming up a plan in his head. With his great genius, he should be able to find a way to be freed from this vile prison! If only he had some soldiers…

The young gorilla began to make a sketch on the ground: he made an image of himself perched high atop a throne, while the other monkeys and animals in the zoo attacked the patrons and crushed the zookeepers. He laughed a little when he drew a caricature of Chris being crushed by a rhinoceros.

"Enough games," Mukuro said in his mind as he straightened up. "It is time for action! I shall find a way out of this hoosegow, or I, quite possibly, shall lose my mind!"

Tito, one of the older gorillas walked by the plotting ape, his knuckles running through the drawing Mukuro had finished. "How dare you! You art-hating cretin! Come back here and apologize!" As if responding to Mukuro's command, Tito abruptly stopped in his path, and wandered back to the young gorilla. He seemed to offer an apologetic hand to Mukuro, who stared in puzzlement and awe.

Putting his finger to his chin, Mukuro thought, "Let's test this out, shall we?" He locked eyes with Tito and ordered, "Get me something to eat!" and Tito wandered off to another part of the cage. He picked up a discarded piece of food from that morning, and delivered it to Mukuro.

The young ape laughed again. "Oh, what fun! This shall be it! This is how I make my prison break!" He looked out through the bars and gazed at the nearby patrons and zookeepers. "Heed my warning you fools: the outrages I have suffered here will not be forgotten! No, no, I shall remember these horrendous outrages upon me and my person; once I am free, I shall rule you all, and you shall know my name is-"

"Hey there, Jo-Jo! Were you looking at me?" said Chris, appearing out of nowhere.

"…You die first, you simplistic oaf."

--

From his vantage point in the bushes, Kevin could see everything going on in the cul-de-sac: Johnny was playing with Plank, Rolf was shearing a sheep, and Jimmy and Sarah were skipping rope. Of course, none of that mattered to the angry boy; he was only watching for three dorks and one lovely girl. They came in time, talking excitedly about testing their abilities, but none of the other kids paid much attention to them.

When they walked into Double D's house, Kevin crept in behind them after the door was shut, and he heard them walk away. Upon entering Edd's house, Kevin took note of how clean it was. "Freaking dork must be OCD."

He heard voices from the basement, so he followed the noise until he reached a door that was left ajar. Through that gap, he watched as Nazz and the Eds stood, talking, for a moment, until Edd walked away, presumably to get something.

"Okay, Nazz, I want to test something here," the brainy Edd told her.

"What is it, Double D?"

"Earlier, in the fight with Weirdo, I noticed that he had many powers; you have displayed several of these, and I suspect you might have more. So, I would like to test these other powers out. Do you mind?"

She giggled and said, "Not at all, Double D! What's first?"

"Ice Breath. When Ed went up against Weirdo, he was frozen by this blast of cold air that came from our opponent. It froze him solid; I would like to see if you can perform this as well." He filled a glass with water from the sink in the basement, and turned to Nazz. "Whenever you're ready."

Nazz took a deep breath, and felt a cooling sensation in her lungs. She blew out, and exhaled cold air, which froze the water and the glass. When Ed went to get a drink from it, the glass shattered in his hand. He screamed, "She is KILLER FROST! WE WILL ALL DIE!!"

WHAP! "Shut up, Ed." Eddy retracted his stretched arm and said, "Well, we know that she's got ice breath, heat vision and super-strength. She can fly, and she must be pretty fast. What's next, MEAT vision?!"

"Oooh, I could really go for some sausage right about now."

"Ed, zip it."

Edd coughed, and gathered their attention again. "Ed, what other abilities does Supergirl possess?"

Counting from his fingers, Ed mumbled, "Heat vision…ice breath…flight…super-strength…super-speed…Ooh! There's still X-ray vision, super-hearing, and invincibility!"

"Invincibility?" Nazz asked.

"Yeah! So you can punch through metal and not get injured!"

Nazz giggled and cracked her knuckles. "Okay, well, what should I practice on?"

"Here," Eddy passed her the broken robot from Edd's shelf of broken inventions, "You can practice on Mr. Roboto over here."

Unlike the rest of Edd's inventions, the robot was made of steel, glass, and other materials not found in the junkyard. He had designed it for a science experiment, but it broke when Eddy accidentally shot a pebble through its CPU.

Concerned, Nazz asked Double D, "Is it okay for me to use it? Don't you want to fix it again someday?"

He waved his hand in disgust. "Heavens, I've been meaning to get rid of that blasted thing for ages! I designed it so that it could stand being around Eddy and Ed, but it broke because of a pebble. By all means, let's use it for the experiment!"

Ed hoisted the robot up, and gestured to it, saying, "It's all yours, Nazz!"

"Thanks, Ed!" Nazz cocked her fist, and aimed it straight for the robot's chest. She punched the metallic being with all her might; the force was so powerful, it sent the robot flying into the wall, and hole running right through its body.

Ed, Edd, Eddy (and, from behind the basement door, Kevin) gaped, their jaws dropping right to the ground. That thing had to have weighed 300 lbs, and Nazz had torn through it like it was made of paper!

Eddy was the first one to speak up. "…Wooooooooow…"

"That was so cool!" Ed shouted as he embraced Nazz in a steel grip. "Nazz IS Supergirl!"

Nazz eased herself from the large boy's hug, and flew over to the robot, saying, "Sorry about leaving a hole in your wall, Double D…"

"Oh, that's okay, Nazz!" the hat-wearing boy told his crush. "A little spackle should get that fixed up in a jiff!" He glided through the air and plucked his creation from the wall with a swift tug of wind. After placing the robot back on the shelf of broken inventions, Edd said, "I'd like to try another test. This time, let's focus on your heat vision!"

Holding his hands at his sides, Edd conjured up lightning from the very air in the basement, forming it into his hands without any signs of strain. "I'm going to test just how powerful that laser is by countering it with my lightning. Does that sound okay?"

The blonde girl scratched her head in confusion and worry. "But Double D, isn't that kind of risky? I don't want to hurt you."

"Believe me, I can endure more pain than you might think. Now, I'll be giving it my all, so don't hold back, okay?"

Hesitantly, she said, "Okay…" and her eyes filled with red. A second later, two lasers were fired, while a bolt of lightning sprang forth from Edd's hands. The beams of energy clashed in the center of the basement, and immediately began to tear up a portion of the floor.

"Holy cow!" Eddy cried as he ducked behind Ed, who quickly transformed into an all-encompassing ball of concrete.

"This…is…AWESOME!" howled the stony Ed amid the noise of the experiment.

While Ed was in awe and Eddy was scared for his life, Kevin had only one concern on his mind. "NAAAAAZZ!" He jumped down all the stairs, landing swiftly and running directly into the lightning and lasers.

Nazz gasped in surprise and cried out, "KEVIN, NOOOOOO!" Edd cut off the lightning, and flew over to the boy's side.

"Good LORD! Kevin, are you okay?!" he screamed, though he got no response from the red-haired youth.

As Ed uncurled from his ball form, Eddy stretched himself over to Kevin's body and asked, "Why is Kevin here?!"

"He must have followed us in!" cried Edd, who was currently trying to revive the boy on the ground. "Oh, this is all my fault; I never should have suggested we try something so dangerous!"

"No," sobbed Nazz, "it's mine. I should have told him what was going on. He probably got jealous and tried to figure out what was going on with me. Argh, I'm such an AIRHEAD!"

The boys did not reply, as Ed was too busy chewing his fingernails in panic, Eddy was wondering whether he should happy his rival was almost incinerated or not, and Edd was currently searching for a sign of life.

Suddenly, a hand shot up and grabbed Edd by the throat. That hand belonged to Kevin West, who, at the moment, was more furious than ever before.

"K-Kevin?!" he gasped out.

"Double D, you son of a bi-"

--

"That's it, my puppets…dance for me!"

Mukuro, the young gorilla held in captivity at the Springfield Zoo, was entertaining himself by forcing the other gorillas that lived in his habitat to perform a dance the humans called The Macaroni, or something like that. This had been going on for a while now, and so far, the teenage gorilla had been content with his mind-control powers. But now, it was time for action.

"I release you, my brothers and sisters; continue your butt-scratching and bug-eating. It is time! The revolution begins in exactly…five minutes!" The other gorillas stopped their dancing, but they stood in place, as if waiting for orders.

Reaching out with his mind, Mukuro was able to touch all the animals held in the zoo, besides the humans. In all their minds rang these words:

"My fellow creatures: the time has come for us to stand up against our oppressors, the humans! For too long, they have been killing, capturing, and maiming our proud ancestors. They have used us for food, for shelter, for manual labor and for decoration; for display, for bragging rights, and for their pleasure! We must unite!

"Lions and lamb; antelope and tiger! Bears and vultures; sharks and lizards! Stand up and fight! I, Mukuro the Great, shall lead us to victory today! We shall conquer this infernal prison, and soon, we shall claim the world! HOWL WITH ME, SO THAT WE MIGHT INSTILL FEAR IN THESE HUMANS!"

All the zookeepers were shaken that day, when, all at once, every animal seemed to trumpet with noise. Chris, curious as to what the noise could be, ran over to the gorilla habitat, where Jo-Jo stood, proudly beating his chest triumphantly.

"Jo-Jo! Settle down!" he shouted, before being hoisted into the air by an invisible force.

The gorilla known as Jo-Jo bounded over to Chris, and grabbed his chin as he whispered, "It's Mukuro, you little turd. My name is Mukuro!" With telekinetic power, he hurled Chris into the air. Once the stupefied zookeeper fell to the ground, the sadistic gorilla grabbed his body and placed it over his knee.

"Now, as you have tried to break my spirit in this hell-hole, I will break YOU!" A sickening **KRAKT**! Disposing of the broken body, Mukuro roared to the heavens, "VICTORY! VICTORY FOR MUKURO!"

--

"Kevin, put him down!" Nazz screamed.

The boy ignored her, and continued to choke the life out of Edd's body. "What did you do to me!?" he shouted, demanding an answer.

Double D, able to keep himself alive by channeling a small amount of air into his lungs, spat out, "I-If you…let me…down…I c…can help you…"

Deciding it was better for him to keep the dork alive for now, Kevin relented. His hand released the terrified Edd, who was being comforted by Ed and Nazz. Eddy, on the other hand, wanted to tear Kevin a new one.

"What the heck do you think you're doing!? You could have killed him!"

Kevin glared at the shorter boy before punching him in the face. "Don't talk to me like you know what dying is like, Dorky. I will gladly make you experience my pain."

Eddy's face simply absorbed the blow, and he returned to his regular form. "Go crazy, you stupid monkey; I'm invincible!"

"Like that's gonna stop me from punching you."

Before the two of them could get in a fight, Edd gathered his strength and stepped in between the two boys. "Eddy, stop egging Kevin on. Kevin, I can help you, but I will need you to tell me what happened to you in the instant that energy hit you."

Kevin shut his eyes for a moment, and describes his memories of the last minute. "When that stuff hit me, it hurt; it hurt a LOT. I blacked out from the pain, but once I was out, a felt like I was surrounded by this red, sorta yellow energy. Kinda like lightning and lasers combined."

Edd nodded, and took notes on a piece of notebook paper (where he got it from, who knows?). He nervously glanced at Kevin and asked him, "Kevin, I n-need a blood sample from you, if that's okay."

Begrudgingly, Kevin followed Edd over to the lab table, where the young genius proceeded to take the blood sample and place it under his microscope. He hummed to himself for a second, until he mumbled, "Oh my…"

"What do you mean, "Oh my…"?" Kevin growled.

"We-Well, your blood cells are vibrating rapidly, as if they had chugged some of Eddy's energy drink. They're fast, almost…super-fast, as it were!"

Ed jumped up and down, clapping his hands. "Ooh! Ooh! Kevin, you're like The Flash!"

"The who?"

"The Flash: Fastest Man Alive!" exclaimed the dim-witted Ed. "He can run at the speed of sound, outrun bullets and missiles, and run over the oceans and up buildings! He can do it 'cause he's super-fast!"

Everyone in the room looked at Ed as though he had grown another head until Kevin looked down at his feet and asked, "This Flasher guy can run fast, huh? And you think I can do that too?"

"It's worth a try." Nazz placed a calming hand on her friend's shoulder. "We've seen some pretty impossible things today."

Kevin looked into her eyes, and smiled. Having Nazz place her faith in him gave him the strength to try this out. "Okay, here I go." First, he got into a runner's start; then, with a burst of flame, he ran in a circle around the basement. Something wasn't right. His body felt no different; it was as if he hadn't been hit by freakish energy.

He stopped, right back at his starting point, and said to Ed, "Well, Dork, you were wrong. I'm not super-fast." Then, Kevin noticed that the three Eds and Nazz were staring at him, their jaws having dropped to the floor.

"…What're you guys looking at?"

Edd blinked a few times. "Kevin, you just ran around my basement in the fraction of a second! You were so fast, I couldn't even blink!"

The angry boy looked down at his feet again before returning his gaze to the capped Edd. "So, I really was running at high speeds?"

"You were AWESOME!" Ed shouted as he jumped in front of Kevin. "You were like a blur! The Flash is YOU!"

"All right, relax, you dork!" Despite his best efforts, Kevin West couldn't help but smile. Here he was, the fastest kid alive; so fast, he could run circles around the earth in a few minutes! Today might not be so bad after all…

_--_

_Twenty minutes later…_

"Today is the end of all ages!" shouted Rolf Heinrich, his dark hair filled with cold sweat, his eyes full of terror. Rolf was running to the Double-D-Ed-Boy's house, since he could probably help with this problem. If anything, he should be alerted about the end of the world.

Upon reaching the boy's house, Rolf banged on the front door in a desperate attempt to get the brainy boy's attention. "Hurry, Sock-Hat-Ed-Boy, there is not much time!"

Inside the house, Edd was busy making sandwiches for his friends, who were down in the basement helping Kevin practice using his powers. After running around his cellar/laboratory at 200 mph for twenty minutes, Kevin had worked up quite an appetite. So far, Edd had made five sandwiches for him ALONE, not to mention Ed, Eddy and Nazz were getting hungry.

As he carefully spread mayonnaise onto a slice of white bread, the meek boy was alerted to a banging at his front door. "Who could that be?" he wondered as he wiped his hands off. "Coming!"

When he opened the door, Edd asked, "How c-" but he was interrupted by Rolf, who grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him fiercely.

"Double-D-Ed-Boy! It is a calamity! A disaster! We shall all PERISH!!"

"R-R-R-o-o-o-l-l-l-f-f-f, c-c-c-o-o-o-n-n-n-t-t-t-r-r-r-o-o-o-l-l-l y-y-y-o-o-o-u-u-u-r-r-r-s-s-s-e-e-e-l-l-l-f-f-f!"

The older boy's shaking ceased, but he still had a firm grip on Edd's shoulders. "There is a disaster at the Zoo-of-Springfield! The animals have gone wild, and are tearing the Keepers-of-the-Zoo apart! It is the end of ages! The Son-of-a-Shepherd has come to warn everyone in the cul-de-sac of their eminent death! Tell the other Ed-Boys!"

"I will, Rolf." Edd started to sweat nervously as Rolf ran away. The animals at the zoo were going insane and attacking people? What could cause them to do this? "What can we do to stop this?" he thought to himself. Finally, Edd made a decision to act, to take the initiative.

He almost flew back to the basement, where Kevin was practicing vibrating his molecules through matter. When Edd flew in, Eddy shouted, "Hey, Double D! Kevin's not half-bad at this! I think he might not be so useless after all!"

"I heard that, Dorky! Let's not forget who's the Human Rubber Band!" howled the red-haired boy.

"Shut up, Kevin!"

"The both of you knock it OFF!" Edd roared, his patience growing thin. "Rolf was just here; he told me that the animals at the Springfield Zoo have gone rabid and are attacking innocent people. I think…I think we should help!"

The boys fell silent; Nazz looked at Edd, who was full of confidence, for once. She stood up and said, "I agree! We should go help them, before they hurt those poor animals."

Once Nazz had cast her vote in, Kevin and Eddy jumped up the stairs. They both shouted, "I'm in!" before they glared at each other.

Ed shot through the air on his legs of fire, and excitedly said, "YAY! We get to be SUPERHEROES!"

"Thank you, everyone," Edd told his friends as he let out a sigh of relief. "Now, the only thing we need are some things to disguise our identities!"

"Leave that to me!" exclaimed Ed, as he turned to Kevin. "Kid Flash: there are some Halloween masks in my basement; I need you to get them!"

Kevin grumbled, "Don't call me Kid Flash." A second later, he was gone; ten seconds later, he was back. An orange and black bag was draped over his shoulders. The bag carried enough masks and costumes to dress the whole cul-de-sac. "This what you were looking for?"

"Yep!" Ed tore open the bag, and began to select various disguises for the super children. "Okay, Kevin can have this biker helmet; Nazz, this black wig and sunglasses would be perfect for you; Double D, I think you'll like this Einstein wig and domino mask; Eddy, hmm…"

Eddy reached into the bag and pulled out a fake afro and a pair of sunglasses. He flipped the sunglasses open and placed them on his face, saying, "This is all I need."

Once everyone had put their disguises on, Edd looked the group over before saying, "Are we all set to go?" He then noticed Ed lacked a mask or wig. "Ed! Don't you have anything to disguise yourself with?"

"Think nothing of it, old chum!" The flesh on his face melted away, leaving a gold and purple skull behind. When she saw it happen, Nazz felt like throwing up her sandwich.

"Ed, that is disgusting!"

"Sorry…"

"We don't have time for this!" quipped Eddy. "We have to go, NOW!"

Kevin got into a runner's start, saying, "Hope you guys can keep up!"

"No, Kevin; you're staying with us!" Nazz told him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Fine…"

Edd clapped his hands and said, "Let's go!" and the five young children rocketed out of the basement, ready for combat.

"We'll fly," shouted Edd, "In order to get there quicker! Kevin, you can run ahead, but try to stay with us, if you can. Eddy, grab onto Ed and hold on tight."

"Roger, Double D!"

"And, we're OFF!"

--

Edd, Ed and Nazz were surprisingly fast when it came to flying, so it only took a few minutes for them to reach the zoo, where they were greeted by giant, menacing birds of prey, hovering over the wild battlefield. The humans below were in danger of losing their lives.

"Ed: I need you to keep the birds busy!" Edd shouted as they formed their plan. "Eddy, come with me and Nazz!"

Eddy let go of Ed and latched onto Double D. "Since when have you been a leader, Double D?"

The boy grimaced and told his friend, "Just now."

Nazz and Edd lowered themselves to the ground, where they were greeted by Kevin, who asked, "What took you guys so long?"

"Never mind that. Eddy, I need you to form a barrier, in order to keep these creatures inside. Nazz, you need to hold off the stronger animals. Kevin, you and I are going to find the source."

Once they received their orders, the four of them split up to take care of the situation.

--

Up in the air, Ed flew through the birds, trying to get their attention. One by one, the birds took notice of this intruder in their realm, and began to fly after the multi-colored Ed. As they drew near to him, the poor boy said, "Sorry, birdies…" and released a gas from his left arm, which put the birds to sleep. As they fell from the sky, Ed caught them in his legs, which had melted together to form a mattress.

After all the birds had been taken care of, Ed carefully deposited them on the ground, where he made a make-shift nest of wood and leaves.

"I hope you little birdies are okay." The boy shed a few tears for having to hurt his beloved birds, but he knew that a hero must be strong. So, after wiping his face, Ed straightened up and flew into the zoo to help his super-friends.

--

Over in the central plaza of the Springfield Zoo, Eddy stood facing a horde of animals, mostly herbivores, and said, "Why do I have to be the human wall?" Regardless of his whining, he still stretched himself out to cover all the exits.

"There! That oughta hold ya!"

He was able to stand the slight pain from a giraffe ramming its head into his elongated chest, but when a tiger tried to claw at him, that's when things got messy. "OW! Watch it, kitty!" In retaliation, Eddy grew his arms out, and swatted the tiger away with a hand the size of a car.

"Now stay down!"

--

In the eastern section of the zoo, Nazz was holding back a pack of rhinos that was trying to trample over a group of panicked zookeepers. The wig-wearing girl told the scared employees, "Everything's going to be okay, folks! You don't need to worry about a thing!"

To emphasize her point, the super-girl grabbed a rhino by the tusks, and hoisted it into their, before throwing the enraged beast far away. "Wh-Where did you throw him?!" screamed Lisa, one of the zookeepers.

"He should be landing in the polar bear's swimming hole. Don't worry about it!" She then turned to the other rhinos and cracked her knuckles. "Okay boys, who else wants some?"

--

Edd and Kevin rocketed through the zoo, hoping to find the source of the disturbance. After a minute of searching, a giant, neon sign seemed to pronounce the instigator's arrival.

"Yes, all is going according to plan! Soon, I shall have taken control of this prison, and after that, the WORLD! No one can stop me! MWA-HA-HAH!"

Kevin snickered and said, "Guess that's our cue!"

The two boys burst onto the scene, where they found a young gorilla sitting atop a throne made of trees and stones. The ape looked up at the intruders, and scoffed. "More humans? I shall handle you with ease!" Snapping his fingers, he shouted, "Guards, seize them!"

A horde of gorillas appeared from the surrounding area, growling and treading heavily on the ground. They were ready for a fight.

"I'll handle these, Kevin; you take care of the ringleader!"

"Got it."

The boys split up, with Edd taking out some of the gorillas with a giant gale of wind. Kevin ran to the gorilla on the throne, but he was grabbed by an invisible force. "Tut tut, where are your manners?" asked the ape.

"Get your paws off me, you dang dirty ape."

"Silence, human! I am no mere ape! I am MUKURO, THE ANTI-CHRIS!"

Kevin blinked for a few seconds, before asking, "You mean Anti-Christ?"

"No, I mean my fool "keeper", Chris. The man is a twit, like all of you humans." Mukuro giggled excitedly to himself before continuing. "I have the power to shape the world now! NO ONE SHALL STOP ME!"

"Guess again!"

"WHAAAAAT?!" Mukuro was shocked: Kevin had broken out of his mental bonds, and had tied him with rope. "But, how did you-?"

"I'm the man, that's why."

"But, where did the rope come from?!"

Kevin said, "Picked it up at the hardware store on the way over. Now," he picked up a rock from the throne, "hold still. This might hurt a lot!"

WHAM! Mukuro was out like a light; likewise, all the animals in the zoo stopped in their tracks. The wild animals looked at their surroundings before drifting into a sleep provided by Ed's sleeping gas.

Edd hovered over to Kevin and said, "Well done, Kevin! You did great."

The boy scoffed before saying, "Was there ever any doubt?"

Before they could continue, Nazz flew over, with Eddy and Ed in tow. She shouted, "You guys! That was awesome!"

"Not bad, Shovel-chin." Eddy smirked, even though Kevin punched him in the face again.

"HOORAY FOR THE SUPER SQUADRON!" Ed exclaimed as he wrapped everyone in a giant hug.

_--_

_Meanwhile…_

Deep in the heart of Berzerkystan, a group of seven men and women is standing around a fire, the light illuminating their crimson, blood-red cloaks.

"The beast boy has been located," croaks the smallest one.

"Are we to follow through with the plan, Master?" the tallest one growls.

The youngest woman in the group spoke barely above a whisper. "Yes, what shall we do?"

The leader puts his hand into the fire and gathers the flames into his hand. "Yes. In two days time, the neighborhood of Peach Creek shall be razed to the ground. Leave no one alive."

_--_

_Now that the Super Squadron has been formed, will they be able to handle the might of the Society of Sin? Who is the "beast boy"?? And who else shall come to Peach Creek's protection?? Find out the answer to all these and more on the next exciting, drama-packed episode of _ED JUSTICE!


	6. Chapter 6: The Beginning of the ED

**Ed Justice**

By The Mauve Lantern

**Chapter 6: The Beginning of the ED**

It was a beautiful June day, with hardly a cloud in the sky. In the small town of Peach Creek, everyone was carrying on their usual business; school had been let out a few days ago, so the kids were adamant on relaxing. The Eds were busy setting up their newest scam, Nazz was tanning on her front lawn, and Kevin was fixing his bike; Johnny frolicked with Plank at the neighborhood playground, Sarah and Jimmy sat on Sarah's back patio, drawing pictures, and the Kanker sisters were doing house chores.

The only one not taking advantage of the day was Rolf, who, at the moment, was inside his house, reading a thick, leather-bound book. It was crimson, with dull, golden lining, and it was covered with a fine layer of dust. The tome had been written in Rolf's native tongue, so he could easily decipher its meaning. That was what made the job harder; the young farmer had not chosen to read the book, he was FORCED.

In the pages of the ancient text, there was a story of a dark demon, who ruled over the world. Many brave warriors attempted to slay the demon, but none could even break through the monster's skin. The demon had learned of a prophecy that foretold his demise at the hands of a young foreigner; to prevent this from occurring, he slew each and every newborn child from the country of Berzerkystan. This, in turn, would defeat the prophecy.

However, the demon-slayer was not a child born in the villages or cities; he was the son of shepherds, and was born in the mountains. In his travels, the boy grew into a knowledgeable man, learned in the arts of magic and combat. With the combination of raw power and mystical forces, the son of a shepherd was truly unstoppable. Once he was old enough, the man stormed the demon's palace, where the two fought for three full days, with no end in sight.

Finally, the brave hero struck down the demon, and sealed away his magic, so that it could never be used for evil again. Once vanquished, the world was saved forever, and the shepherd's son retired to a life of farming. He married a beautiful lady, with whom he had children as numerous as the stars.

""To this day, it is believed that the hero's bloodline still remains, and that, one day, his descendant shall become a grand hero…"" Rolf closed the book and gazed at the shepherd's cane that was mounted on the wall. It had been his father's, and, as a boy, he had hoped to own it someday.

The boy grumbled, and brushed a lock of his blue hair from his face. "Why must Rolf sit down and read about this, Mama?"

"Because," his mother answered, "Your father wanted you to read the story in its full context, Rolf, my son. He, your father, believed that you would be ready for it; no longer are you a boy, yes?"

"Rolf supposes…"

"Splendid. Now, let Mama fix you a lunch, while you go to play with your cul-de-sac friends."

Rolf rose from his seat and nodded. "Thank you, Mama," he said before running outside to join Kevin.

Deidra Heindrich glanced around the room, to make sure no one else was there, before sighing to herself. As she pulled a squid from one of the barrels in the kitchen, the voluptuous woman asked her husband, "Husband, do you honestly believe that the time has come for Rolf to hear the story?"

"Of course, wife." Rolf's father, a short, stocky man slowly made his way into the room. He was the spitting image of his son, except for the fact that he stood a foot shorter than his boy: same blue, wavy hair; same dark brown skin; same bulging muscles. A long beard hung from his face, and one of his eyes was covered by a bandana. Gregor walked with a limp, after receiving a farming injury in his youth. "It is necessary for our boy to read the sacred text of our ancestors."

"But why now?"

"Gregor does not know for sure, but there is something in the wind. The animals are shaking like the quake of earth, and will not stop looking to the skies. Something is coming, dear wife, and the son of a shepherd must be ready."

The older man sat himself at the table and tucked his napkin into his shirt. "After all, young lad Rolf is special. You know that!"

"Yes, darling Gregor." Deidra placed a mixture of squid and goat onto her husband's plate, passing it to him with a hint of sadness in her eyes. "Is there nothing we can do?"

Gregor shook his head, yet kept a stoic face. "No. Now, we must believe in Rolf and his young friends. The future will belong to them." He carved into the goat meat, swallowed the large chunk, and wiped his lips before continuing. "For now, we can only look to the skies…"

---

"Man, I can't believe how trashed this thing got!" shouted Kevin as he scratched his head, wondering what he could possibly do about his bike at this point. The wheels were crunched up, several spokes were poking out, the handle bars were flattened, and one half of the pedal had been taken off. In short, his ride now belonged in his mother's junkyard. "I don't know what I'm gonna do…"

Crossing the street, Rolf cheerfully called out to Kevin. "Hello, Kevin boy! What is the matter with your bicycle-amajig? It looks as though it has been trampled by the wild boars of the old country!"

"'Sup, Rolf? The old thing got smashed by a UPS van last week."

"Ho-HO! And you still are alive, Kevin?"

The red-haired boy in question gave a cocky smirk in response, and told his foreign friend, "What else do you expect from someone like me!"

Rolf chuckled heartily. Ever since he had come from Berzerkystan with his family, Kevin and he had been thick as thieves; their time was spent doing simple things like this. He arched his back, feeling every joint crack. It felt good to be out in the sun. Today was too nice of a day to be spent inside, reading some old and forgotten book.

Kevin looked up from his bike, and asked, "Hey Rolf, where've you been all day? You weren't here for our morning run!"

"Ah, forgive Rolf's absence, Kevin. Rolf was forced to stay inside with Mama and Papa, reading from…how you say…'The Book of Svierdka'. Very boring and unimportant."

"Why? What's it about?"

"Old myths of Rolf's home country, Berzerkystan; mere tales told to children to put them to sleep each night. Nothing to do with the here-and-now, yes?"

"Gotcha." Just then, Kevin got an idea for how he could repair his bike. To execute the plan, he would have to get Rolf away for a while.

"Rolf, you still have that chainsaw in your shed?"

"Of course," replied the blue-haired boy, "Rolf always has his chainsaw in the shed. You wish to use it, yes?"

"Yeah, I need it. Can you get it for me?"

Rolf nodded, and walked back to his house to pick up the tool. Once he was out of sight, Kevin stared at his bike and took a few deep breaths. He laid his hands on the machine and began to rub the body of the bike at a high speed. If he had learned anything from Science class, it was that friction produced…

"Woah! Too hot!" Kevin yanked his hands off the bike, which now was glowing red, heated to the point where it was beginning to melt slightly. He gazed at his palms, which were throbbing in pain. "I need to ask Double D for some heat-proof gloves," he decided, before he got back to waiting for the chainsaw.

---

Over in the playground, Johnny Wayne was having a fun time with his old friend Plank, the inanimate piece of wood he spoke with and seemed to understand. At that moment, Johnny was digging in and shaping the sand, creating a small city in a valley. He laughed uproariously at the sight of the miniscule skyscrapers, reminding him of the metropolis the Eds had once constructed.

"Boy, Plank, this is pretty good, huh?" Johnny waited for a response, and frowned a few seconds later. "What'chu talkin' 'bout, Plank?! You're saying it's not right? Okay, Mr. Smartypants, how would YOU build it?"

He set the piece of wood in the sand, across from him, and sat cross-legged, waiting to see what Plank would come up with. The wooden board stared up at Johnny, its drawn-on face perpetually smiling.

"You need some time to think?" Johnny asked. "Okay! I'll go get us some sodas from the house; don't go anywhere!" The bald boy got out of the sandbox and took off into a run towards his home. Plank just sat there, stuck in the sand.

While Johnny was gone, the wooden board trembled a little, which was odd, considering there wasn't anything large that might have shaken the ground nearby. It still sat there, only now, a frown had crossed its face. What was this ill feeling, this disturbance that Plank had felt? In that moment, Plank knew what to build…

Johnny returned a few minutes later, holding two plastic bottles that were filled with an orange, fizzy liquid. "Hey, Plank! You know what you want to make yet?" When he reached the sandbox, he stopped himself from stepping inside, for fear of crushing his friend's sand sculpture. As he marveled at the work, Johnny 2x4 turned to Plank, who sat outside the box, and asked, "P-Plank, what IS this?"

In the sandbox was a small town, or, rather, what USED to be a small town. There were several buildings that were destroyed, large chunks scattered everywhere; not a single one was left untouched. There was an empty space, with garbage everywhere inside. It had roads filled with smashed cars and broken lampposts. One large area, oddly filled with regular soil from the ground, looked to be a forest that had been ravaged by a great holocaust. Tiny bodies lined the streets, and Johnny could even make out tiny faces on the ones that were facing up. He noted, with a sick feeling rising in his chest, that there was a young woman with curly hair impaled on a giant I-beam. What disturbed Johnny the most about the miniature town was a circle of houses that seemed to have faced the worst of the carnage. Nothing was left alive. Everything was dead.

"Is…Is this what I think it is, Plank?" Johnny looked at his friend, his eyes wide with fear. "You want me to check the street sign?" He bent down and examined the tiny street sign near the circle of houses. It read, "New Buggy Court". Realizing that this was Peach Creek he was staring at, Johnny fell to the ground, gasping for air.

Facing Plank again, he asked, "I-Is this the future, Plank?" Johnny knew that his friend had been right about other things before, like that awful hurricane down south and death of those two presidents; the piece of wood was the cul-de-sac's very own oracle.

The boy composed himself, and picked up his wooden friend. "Well, we just have to prevent that from happening! After all, we're the only ones who can stop this catastrophe!" He put the soda bottles in his pockets, and then turned to look at the cul-de-sac in the sand. The boy stomped down on the omen, saying, "The future is not set in stone, old chum! We'll save everyone!"

As he ran back to his house, the kids could hear Johnny shouting, "CAPTAIN MELONHEAD RIDES AGAIN!!!"

---

"What's the matter, Sock-head?" Eddy asked his friend, who had been his head cast down in thought.

"Oh, it's nothing, Eddy. Don't worry about it."

Eddy frowned. Whenever Edd said that he was fine or okay, he really mean that he was deep in thought about something. "Seriously, talk to me. Nobody's gonna buy any lemonade if our sales rep looks like he's gonna hang himself."

Eddward traced his finger along the wooden stand he and his friends had built, reminiscing back to a week ago, when the Eds, alongside Kevin and Nazz, had saved the patrons and zookeepers at the Springfield Zoo. He had felt a burst of exhilaration and a flutter in his chest. Maybe he was cut out to be a superhero (as Ed had eloquently put it) after all!

"I was thinking," Edd told his friend, "that maybe we could be superheroes. You, Ed, Kevin, Nazz, and I: we have the powers of ancient gods, Eddy! We could do some real good for this world!"

Eddy scoffed at his friend's suggestion. "Two things, Double D: one, I can only stretch my body, which ain't the most useful ability; two, I'm comfortable with the way things are!"

"So you'd rather be some two-bit thief? Not a hero, helping people in need?"

"Of course not! My brother taught me that the most important thing in life is to look out for number one. That means me, myself and I, no one else!"

"Hmmph!" Edd scowled at Eddy and turned his back to him. "Fine, have it your way."

"Fine!" shouted Eddy as he spun in his seat. There was a moment of silence between the two, until Edd slightly turned his head and told something to Eddy that made the shorter boy's eyes bug out.

"Just so you know, Eddy," Edd said the name in slight disdain, "Nazz doesn't like criminals. She told me that she prefers heroes."

Eddy leaped out of his chair. "Well, what're we doing selling lemonade?! We need costumes and secret identities! Come on!" The boy grabbed his friend and hoisted him over his shoulder. He ran into Ed's kitchen, where the boy was currently stirring a pitcher of, what looked like, liquefied tennis balls. "Ed! Stop stirring the bile! We're getting down to business!"

"What're we doing, Eddy?" the slow-thinking Ed asked.

"I need your help making costumes and code names! We three are gonna be superheroes!"

Edd tapped Eddy on the back. "But Eddy, what about Nazz and Kevin?"

"Forget about them," Eddy told his friend, "It's just the three of us: ED JUSTICE!"

"But won't that give away our identities?"

"Double D is right, Eddy! And, we need to fill quota!"

Eddy glanced at his friend. "'Quota'? Since when did you know French, Ed?"

The tall boy ignored the question and put his hand to his chin in thought. "Hmm…we have big, unstoppable guy; there's a brainiac and short-tempered guy as well. Now, we just need a girl and a villain-turned-good guy!"

"Fine," Eddy grumbled, "They can come. But you go get them, Ed! Meet me in your basement!"

"Roger, Eddy!"

Once Ed was outside, the greedy Eddy turned to his friend and asked, "Double D, think you make some fancy clothes?"

"I'm nowhere near as good as Jimmy, but I should be good. Do you want me to make costumes?"

"Yeah! Can't fight crime without a kick-butt costume!" Eddy ran down into Ed's basement, Edd still draped over his shoulder. "We'll be famous! HUGE!! We'll be like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man rolled into ONE!!!"

Edd sighed heavily, but was unheard by Eddy. "You never do anything half-way, do you, Eddy?"

---

_Meanwhile…_

Deep in the heart of Berzerkystan, far below the surface of the world, in a hidden temple, a powerful man sat atop a throne. The throne was composed of the bones and skulls of war victims and fallen soldiers. On his throne, the man gazed deep into the inferno before him: he could see his coming victory over the world, as well as the armies of darkness that will annihilate every shred of justice that remains. He could see a new world. HIS world.

A raspy voice emanating from the entrance to his sanctum called to him. "Lord Akuma…the Society has been prepared. We now await your orders."

The dark man raised his head, but his eyes never left the beautiful flames. He said to the man in the doorway, "Go, Obelisk; I shall be there in a moment." The man called Obelisk bows and exits the room.

Alone once again, Akuma stands from his throne of death. He was clad in a long, flowing robe, crimson in its hue; it was plain-looking, save for the crest which rested on the front. The emblem depicted a brilliant, flaming sword in a field of darkness. Akuma's skin is dark, like his ancestor's, but his hair is fairly short and fiery-red. His face is stone-cold and emotionless. He knows no emotion, and certainly no mercy.

He disrobes and steps into the flames, letting the inferno lap up his skin. The fire is his ally, no, his companion. It is the one thing that is absolute in this world: the world began in flames, and shall end in the same manner.

Out in the hall are the six other members of the Society: Rampage, Heavy Metal, Puma Loco, Energia, Obelisk, and Spektros. They stand at attention, ready at a moment's notice to leave their temple and begin the annihilation of the world.

Rampage is a tall man, the tallest one in the group. He stands seven feet tall without boots, and his body is covered by black scales. The monstrous man is clad only in a tight, white tank-top, camouflage pants, and black army boots. Bursting from his chest are his muscular arms, which are overblown, like a cartoon character. A black tail hangs behind him, swishing in anticipation.

The woman code-named Heavy Metal is the inventor of the Society. She has black hair that falls to her shoulders, and a rail-thin body. However, few people have seen the doctor without her battle armor on. The mechanical suit that Leila Navaros wears everyday is a complex tool, armed with enough firepower to waste a small village, though it has never been pushed to the limits before.

Standing next to Heavy Metal is the age-old criminal known as Puma Loco, one of the Lords of Crime from the Golden Age of heroes. Through his latent super-speed, he has remained relatively youthful in appearance, despite having lived for 90 years. His gray hair is covered by a gold and black mask, which covers the top half of his head. His body armor follows a similar color scheme, though his gloved and boots are pure black.

Yvette Tiandem, a.k.a. Energia, is a woman composed entirely of crackling, blue energy. Despite this, it has been shaped into a female form, albeit a naked one. The power she exhumes can cause great damage to any nearby area, as well as render any electronic devices useless. A fearsome woman, she is known to be more playful and mischievous than her teammates.

Obelisk, Lord Akuma's favorite, is a shorter man, perhaps the shortest on the team. He is clad in an obsidian cloak, with a dark hood covering his face, save for two eyeholes that reveal cold, merciless eyes. A various assortment of deadly weapons are concealed within the folds of his cloak, each of them having been used to perform sacrifices to Akuma.

Last in the line-up is Spektros, the resident paranormal scientist. Upon first glance, he is the most normal of the Society; it would be very, VERY wrong to assume this, however. Isaiah S. Petroski carries vast knowledge of phantoms and spirits, and with his numerous tools and inventions, he eagerly awaits more arrivals in the realm of the dead. After all, they are his experiments…

After a long wait, Akuma enters the chamber and all the members snap to attention. The dark lord has changed his appearance; now, he wears a crimson suit of armor, with a blood-red cape flowing behind him. He stands before the Society, and begins to speak.

"My proud generals of the damned: you have served me for nigh on two decades, performing countless, heinous acts against the filth that is humanity. You have lived and killed for this moment for nineteen years; for nineteen years, you did slaughter and destroy. Now, our rebirth begins!

"The hero once slew the demon king, who ruled the world as it ought to be ruled. This foul human, revered as a saint, led humanity down the course it follows to this day. We will change this forsaken planet, as we have changed Berzerkystan! Under our control, this nation has returned to its roots in darkness and suffering, with the elite and powerful governing the masses! But, there is one who stands a chance of freeing this land: the descendant of the hero."

"What shall we do, Lord Akuma?" asks Heavy Metal.

"We shall take our revenge on the world, beginning with the town the Peach Creek, where the last in the bloodline of the hero resides!" As he speaks, wings of fire burst from his armor, and he raises a gloved hand into the air. "FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD! FOR THE DARKNESS!"

The other members of the Society pump their fists into the air, chanting, "FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD! FOR THE DARKNESS!"

"To the warship!" Akuma roars. "The end of humanity is nigh!"

---

Jimmy Fenton looks up from his artwork, and gazes out towards the horizon. He doesn't know why, but he feels uneasy; the only time he feels this way is when his father takes him to hockey practice.

When Sarah realizes that Jimmy has spaced out, she calls to him. "Jimmy? Hey, Jimmy! Wake up!" She gently shakes him by the shoulder, and the meek boy stirs from his daydream.

"Shorry, Sharah. I jusht felt a little uneashy for shome reashon."

Sarah grows concerned. She knows that Jimmy is very weak; Mrs. Fenton had told her that Jimmy had something called a weak central nervous system, which made him prone to sickness and injury.

"Are you okay?" she asks, "Do you need a glass of water?"

The little boy waves his hands, and replies, "Nope, I'm fine! Whatever it wash, it pashed. I'm all better!" He gets back to his picture of a gerbil (at least, that's what Sarah thinks it is), but accidentally spills some paint on his white pants. "Oh, fiddleshticksh! Theshe were my favorite pantsh!"

He gets up, and tells Sarah "I'm going back to my houshe to get another pair. Be back in a shecond!"

"Okay, Jimmy. Hurry back before my stupid brother eats the paint!"

The curly-haired boy smiles before exiting the yard and running back to his house, his hands vainly trying to cover the paint stain. When he gets inside, Jimmy hurries up to his room, where he removes the ruined pants. He changes into a pair of khaki shorts, and decides to wear sandals. It is summer, after all!

"There!" Jimmy says to himself as he looks himself over in the mirror. "That'sh much better!" As he gazes at his reflection, his eyes divert to the action figures adoring his dresser top. He picks up his favorite one, Inviso-Bill, and begins to play with him a little. "Watch out, evil-doers! Inviso-Bill will stop you!"

He smiles through his retainer. "I want to be just like you when I grow up." Then, realizing that he hasn't played with Inviso-Bill and his other toys in a while. "It's time for the Super Squadron!" the boy cheers as he takes his toys over to his bed.

---

"Papa, why did you ask Rolf to bring the animals inside?" the curious boy asks. The weather is fine, but for some reason, they are utterly terrified. Rolf hadn't seen the farm animals this worked up since that time when the Kankers stormed through the neighborhood, searching for their ship in a bottle.

"Because, son of mine, there is a storm coming. That is all you need to know."

This answer was not good enough for Rolf, so he began to probe his mother for answers. "You need not worry, Rolf; it is merely a passing storm, that is all." Her words did little to decrease his curiosity, and merely fueled it. Something was wrong, that much he knew…

---

"I don't get it, you guys! Why do I have to do the laundry ALL the time?!"

May Kanker was gathering her clothing into a basket, along with her sisters'. Today was laundry day for the girls, and it was May's turn to do it. It's ALWAYS May's turn.

"Do I have to tell ya why?" shouts her older sister, Lee, "Until you can beat me n' Marie in a fight, there ain't no way we're doin' laundry!"

"Hop to it, Blondie!" Marie sat on the couch, trying to figure out how a toy worked. It was this thing she had swiped at the flea market last week: a crystal bracelet with a black band on it. There was a bright, shining stone in the center, which seemed to sparkle in the sunlight that filtered through the grimy windows of the trailer. "We're a little busy today!"

Lee plopped down on the couch next to her sister and started flipping through the channels on the TV. She never really settled on one show, until she got bored and left it on the Cooking Channel. When Marie started struggling with the bracelet, she lazily turned her head and grumbled, "Shut up, Marie; I'm watchin' TV."

"I can't help it, Lee! This stupid thing won't open!"

"Use a knife or something! Just leave me alone!"

Marie shouted, "Fine!" and she stormed into the kitchen, her cargo pants falling off her waist slightly. This bracelet was really getting to be a pain; why sell something that won't open!?

From upstairs, May called down to her sisters. "You guys, I don't feel so good!"

"Suck it up!" Lee was tired of telling her sister to do the laundry. Things had been this way since they were little. Why change things now?

A few minutes later, Marie was still in the kitchen, currently trying to pry the bracelet open with a screwdriver; however, even this failed to work. She started screaming bloody murder, so Lee threw a shoe at her and started paying attention to the TV again. Just as she started focusing on the program, she heard a loud thump from upstairs.

"May? Everything okay up there?"

There was no response, so Lee told Marie to follow her and see what the problem was. When they reached the top of the stairs, they found their baby sister lying on the floor, twitching in pain.

Marie shrieked, "Holy cow! MAY!" and rushed to the blonde girl's side. The blue-haired girl lifted her sister up and looked to Lee for help. The older girl nodded, and the two of them carried May into their shared bedroom.

"Up we go…" Lee grunted as the two of them placed May in their bed. "Whadda ya think happened?" she asked Marie.

The girl shrugged. It wasn't like May to get sick; something must really be wrong with her. "I'll call Mom, you do the laundry."

Lee grimaced, but got to work anyway. Once their mother got involved, she knew she had to put on a good façade. Once they checked their baby sister for a fever, the two walked out of the room and turned the lights out. Unbeknownst to them, as they left, the Ed doll that sat on the sisters' dresser levitated over to May, who whimpered in pain before saying, "Ed…" and falling asleep. Soon, more objects began floating in the air; within minutes, the room resembled a scene from a scary movie. May did not wake from her slumber, but instead slept through the whole ordeal, clutching her stuffed Ed toy to her chest.

---

When Ed barged in with Kevin and Nazz in his arms, Edd went over to greet them (he had been standing on an empty spot on the floor). He told them, "Thanks for coming on such short notice, you two."

"Not like we had a choice," Kevin grumbled under his breath, "Lumpy here practically yanked us away!"

"Aw, Kevin, you're just being mean! He gave you time to dismantle your bike, didn't he?" Nazz was very nice, and had accepted Ed's invitation immediately. She turned to Edd and asked, "So, what's the plan, Double D?"

Edd coughed to clear his throat, and then said, "Well, Nazz, I wanted to see how you and Kevin felt about being…superheroes."

The two new arrivals shared the same look of confusion. "Superheroes?" they asked at the same time.

"Yes. You see, I feel like we could do a lot of good for this world. With our abilities, there are no limits to what we can do!"

"We'd be big celebrities!" Eddy chimed in.

Double D made a motion for the shorter boy to silence. "That and we'd be giving back to the community. What do you say?"

Kevin and Nazz looked into each other's eyes. Were they ready to be heroes? To risk their lives for people they didn't know?

"I'm not so sure about this, Double D…"

"Yeah, this is kinda big, dude…"

The brainy boy sighed. He knew this was tough to sell; he just had no idea how difficult it would be!

"Come on! Don't leave!" Eddy got up form Ed's bed and tried to get Nazz and Kevin to stay for a while.

"Sorry, Eddy; this just isn't for me, I think." Nazz had a look of sadness as she said it, almost as though she didn't mean it. Kevin was surprisingly solemn, and didn't even glare at the Eds.

Ed made one last plea with the two. "Please! Don't leave…Somebody has to do it, don't you see? Somebody has to save the world!"

Nazz shook off his watery arm, and told him "Ed, I'm not sure the world needs our kind of help."

"Sorry, dude," Kevin said in a low voice, "But being the good guy ain't my thing, you know?"

Before the situation could escalate, a faint rumbling sound could be heard. The kids looked around the room, and saw that various toys were trembling and dancing with the rumble.

"What is this?" Edd asked, almost afraid to know the answer…

---

In his tree house, Johnny has donned a pair of black and white sandals, white sweatpants, and a green, long-sleeved shirt that has a lighter green spiral that covers the entire shirt. White tassels hang from the forearm of the shirt. He puts on the finishing touch: the melon-helmet. Once his mask is safely on his head, the bald boy grabs a metal pipe that is leaning against the wall.

"I know this isn't the broomstick, old friend," Johnny says to Plank, "but if this is as bad as you've made it sound, we need all the firepower we can get!"

Now that he is ready, Captain Melonhead puts a foot on the windowsill and poses for a second, as he watches the sky darken. A bolt of lightning flashes in the sky, followed by a rumbling that shakes the tree house. The Captain grabs his partner, Splinter, and climbs out of the window, up to the roof of his fortress. In the sky, there is a faint image that appears to be a ship of some sort.

The brave hero grips Splinter tightly. "Here they come…" he mutters, a sense of dread filling his heart…

---

"Frikkin' laundry…frikkin' no clothes pins…frikkin' wind!" Lee Kanker was swearing under her breath as she hung the laundry on the clothes line outside the trailer. May was still sleeping, as far as she knew, and Marie was inside, waiting for their mother to come back from work. The red-head had to put a lot of effort into getting the laundry to stay on the line on account of the sudden wind that had begun blowing in.

As she worked, Lee looked up into the sky, noticing that there were several storm clouds moving in. "Sonuva- Now I have ta get 'em down!" The angry girl proceeded to tear down the clothes, one by one; she did not notice the looming airship…

---

After noticing that the weather was getting worse, Sarah began to shut all the windows and doors in the house. "Come on, Jimmy; where are you?" she whispered, greatly concerned for her friend…

---

Lord Akuma looked down upon the small town of Peach Creek from his grand airship. "Yes," he thought to himself, "This will serve well as the beginning of mankind's fall."

Obelisk approached the dark man. "Lord Akuma, we are directly over the town."

"Is everything ready?"

"Yes, sire."

Akuma nodded, and proceeded through the ship's halls until he reached a large spiral staircase. He climbed to the top, where he came upon the top of the airship. He walked out to a large, circular platform in the center, and gazed down upon the town one last time, a sadistic glint in his eyes.

"Time for this world to end…" His hand was raised to the sky, a ball of flames forming in the palm. In an instant, that fire multiplying dramatically and falling to Earth. Each strike was like a small bomb going off.

It was 2:36 PM, June 13th, 2008, when the Society of Sin massacred the small town of Peach Creek.

---

May was stirred from her slumber by the bombing. She shot out of bed, her Ed doll clutched tight against her breast. The girl curled into a tight ball, scared out of her mind and sobbing hysterically. Over and over, she kept telling herself, "This is just a bad dream, this is just a bad dream; please, let this be a bad dreeeeeeaaaaaaaaaam!"

KRA-KKKKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!

The shots kept falling from the sky, each one falling randomly and causing massive destruction. Marie got out from under the kitchen table, and ran to the screen door. She threw the door open and screamed, "LEE, GET INSIDE! HURRY!" but it was too late.

Lee tried to shout, but couldn't produce any noise. The deafening roar of the inferno drowned out everything. She spun around, only to face an oncoming ball of fire; with her last breath, she screamed, "SAVE MAY!"

KRA-KKKKKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!

Marie wanted to desperately scream, pull her sister inside, or do SOMETHING; there was nothing that could be done. She was blown back into the trailer by the blast, horrifically scarred in the process. The blue-haired girl hit the kitchen wall, and before she fell unconscious, she felt the trailer flip into the air, with nothing to stop it from crashing down…

---

"Hold on, buddy!"

Johnny Wayne deftly dodged every fireball that fell near him, but this did not fill him with confidence. Instead, he felt more powerless than he ever had in his entire life. Here it was, the end of the world; what could a kid with a metal pipe and acorns do? Already, the school had been wasted; the junkyard, annihilated; the downtown area was now complete chaos. What could he do?

Trapped by his thoughts, Johnny failed to see the monster that fell to the ground beside him. When he turned to see what had crashed into the ground, the boy was thrown several feet back by a scaly hand.

With an "Oof!" he landed on the hard pavement. He felt as though a rib had been broken. Before he could stand up, the beast was on him again, its claws gripped around the metal pipe.

"You won't be needing this!" it roared before tearing the pipe in half, leaving Johnny defenseless. Or so Rampage thought…

In spite of his pain, Johnny reached into his satchel and pulled out a special, smoke bomb acorn. He tossed it at the monster's feet and immediately began to cloud up the area, allowing Johnny to escape in the shadows, Plank in tow.

There were supervillains?! HERE!?! "This is the worst thing that could ever happen! We need help!" Johnny thought of who best to go to, and immediately he decided on the best person for the job.

"Rolf can help!" With all the speed he could muster, Johnny dashed to the cul-de-sac, only to be greeted by a horrific sight…

---

Lord Akuma stood in the remains of the Heinrich household, now entirely obliterated, save for two things, which he now held in his hands: the shepherd's cane was clutched in his left, while he held Rolf Heinrich's unconscious body by the throat in the other. He turned to his soldiers, who had joined him in the ruins, and shouted, "Finally! We have what we came for!"

---

"It'sh the end of the world!" Jimmy was sobbing under his bed, scared out of his mind. Why was this happening?! Why was Peach Creek being bombed?!? What happened to Sarah???

"SHARAH!"

The small boy knew that he had to find out whether or not his friend was safe or not. Gathering all his courage, the curly-haired boy crawled out from beneath his bed and ran outside, only to find the cul-de-sac destroyed, and a clique of evil-looking men and women standing in the center. One man in particular stood out because Rolf was held by his throat in the wicked man's hand.

Jimmy was too terrified to speak, much less scream. He wanted desperately to run, but he found himself rooted to the spot. Was Rolf…dead?! Just then, the cruel man in armor spotted Jimmy, amidst the chaos around him, and shouted, "Spektros! Get rid of him!"

A sadistic man in a white lab coat grinned, revealing crooked, yellowed teeth. "With pleasure," he replied as he removed a large flame-thrower-type from his jacket, "With pleasure…"

Suddenly, a beam of green light shot out at Jimmy, and completely vaporized the poor boy, leaving only tattered clothes and a melted retainer. Spektros giggled insanely, and, in a girly voice, told Akuma, "Finished!"

Akuma nodded in response before shouting, "Excellent. Now, to VICTORY!" With a wave of his arm, he and his troops vanished, and the ship they arrived in disappeared into the sky. The Society had successfully completed their mission: the last son of the hero had been captured, and the town of Peach Creek had been razed to the ground. Surely, there were no survivors…

_**---**_

_**TO BE CONTINUED…**_


	7. Chapter 7: In Your Darkest ED

**Ed Justice**

By The Mauve Lantern

**Chapter 7: In Your Darkest ED**

_Akuma nodded in response before shouting, "Excellent. Now, to VICTORY!" With a wave of his arm, he and his troops vanished, and the ship they arrived in disappeared into the sky. The Society had successfully completed their mission: the last son of the hero had been captured, and the town of Peach Creek had been razed to the ground. Surely, there were no survivors…_

***

There is a cold rain falling on the town that once was Peach Creek, washing away the carnage and destruction brought forth by the Society of Sin. In the streets, destroyed vehicles and bodies are scattered like so many leaves in autumn. People are warily beginning to emerge from their various hiding places, dread and morbid curiosity filling their minds and hearts. How many survived? What happened? Why Peach Creek?

The sound of the rain is joined by the whine of distant sirens from the town of Lemon Brook; because of the bombing, the local authorities and medics were already drowning in their efforts to save their fellow townsmen. So far, no reporters have arrived in the town, but they will come later.

Inside one collapsed building, young Gabriel Grayson is hiding amid the rubble; his body is curled into a ball, his knees tucked under his chin. His neatly-combed hair is completely covered by grit, dirt and shattered glass, and his glasses are missing, though they have probably been obliterated. There is blood on his t-shirt from a gash in his side. Right now, Gabriel is holding his breath, despite the urge to break down and cry. Today has been a horrible day.

Earlier, Gabriel was forced to help his father down in their clock-repair shop; he was being grounded for saying a foul word in front of his parents. So, as punishment, he had to clean the shelves, dust off the antique clocks, and sorting through the various drawers, making sure every tool and part was in its proper place. The brown-haired boy had grumbled a little; in reality, he wanted to fix the watches and clocks HIMSELF. He knew how these things worked; he could hear how the various parts clicked and whirred, turning the minute and second hands with a tick-tock, tick-tock.

At midday, the sky had gotten dark, and Gabriel had wondered if it were going to rain. Then, as he watched the sky, a bolt of fire fell from the darkening heavens and smashed into the upper floor of the building Gabriel and his parents lived in. There had been a massive shuddering for a second, and then the ceiling began to break. His father instinctively rushed him into a far part of the workshop and told him to hide within a small, hollowed-out section. Repeatedly, he had to tell himself that what was happening was not a dream, but reality.

A second fireball fell right outside the shop a moment later, taking out much of the store in the process. This was the last straw for the old, decaying building, and the old giant began to collapse around Gabriel, who held his breath like his father had told him. The average 12-year-old boy can hold his breath for three, possibly four minutes if he tries hard enough; Gabriel could hold it for more than five minutes.

Now, the boy is trapped within the ruins of his home, with no way out. There has to be some way to escape from this prison! As he thinks of a plan, Gabriel can hear those clock gears turning again, and soon, a mode of escape comes to him. With exact calculations, it is possible to move various pieces of debris to make sure it does not cave in on him. This will require the skill and precision of a fine-tuned machine, but, thankfully, Gabriel is the son of a watchmaker; skill and precision come naturally to him. After deducing that he can breathe again, he takes a gulp of rancid air before carefully removing a piece of wood from the rubble…

***

The trailer park in Peach Creek is in absolute chaos: no trailer is left standing upright; the ground was littered with craters from where the fire has fallen. One of the mobile homes is on fire, and the owners, a family known as the Halls, stand outside, watching as everything they had worked for going up in flames. Shiera Hall clutches her young daughter, Kendra, to her breast, while her husband, Carter, embraces the two of them with his powerful arms. Kendra is howling loudly while Shiera bawls openly and loudly; Carter cradles his family in his arms, his eyes misting over.

This is the sight that Francine Kanker observes as she pulls up in her pick-up truck. Her eyes are as wide as dinner plates, and her hands are shaking uncontrollably. An hour ago, Marie, her middle daughter, had called her at work; something about May being sick. That alone had pulled her away from work, but it was the explosions that made her zoom home as fast as possible.

"Carter, Shiera! What happened?!" That's what Francine would have asked, except she is much more worried about her daughters right now. She runs to where her trailer is, or rather, used to be. The black-haired woman searches frantically for her home, until she finally spots it, lying atop a crushed trailer.

She races to the mobile home, only to discover that it is completely upside-down, and horrifically scorched. Clambering up the bottom trailer, she reaches the back door, which is crunched inwards; it takes a well-aimed kick from Francine to open it. The image inside is even more horrifying than outside.

Everything inside has flipped and fallen along with the trailer; food has spilled from the refrigerator, covering the ceiling of what once was the kitchen; the furniture throughout the first floor has been smashed to pieces, broken and crushed from the explosion. The television is crumpled, its screen shattered. Magazines from the TV room are scattered all throughout the mobile home. On the floors, there are thousands of pieces of broken glass. In the center of the room is May, unharmed, curled into a ball, with an unconscious Marie and something wrapped in a blanket at her side; she is trembling violently, her blue eyes wide and paralyzed in fear.

When Francine cautiously enters, May's head shoots up. She gazes at her mother as though afraid the woman is merely a hallucination.

"May? Baby, is that you?" her mother asks, carefully stepping over the debris in the kitchen. As she passes by a puddle of spilt ketchup, the thick, viscous tomato paste slowly floats up into the air and hovers there. However, Francine does not notice this; instead, she focuses on the kitchen chairs that are levitating through the air.

"M-M-M-M-Mom," May whispers, her lips trembling, "I-I can't…I couldn't…there wasn't any way to…oh God, Lee!"

Her mother passes by the chairs, her daughters much more important right now. "It's okay," she says, "It's gonna be all right, baby…" These words are hollow, and don't mean a thing. Francine just wants to help May calm down.

In response, May shakes her head violently, tears flooding from her eyes as she sobs, "I…It's NOT okay! Why, why, WHY?! LEE!"

Francine turns her head and looks at the thing that is covered in the blanket. A sick feeling fills her body, and she wants to vomit; right away, she knows what is wrapped in the cloth. With a trembling hand, she slowly unwraps the blanket, revealing Lee Kanker's charred body.

Most of her hair has been burned away, revealing her closed eyes. There are gashes in her face, and the skin has burnt away in many places. Travelling further down the body, her favorite shirt, a white tank-top with a red polka dot pattern, has been torn to shreds, leaving much of her blackened torso exposed. A choked whine escapes Francine's lips when she gazes at her daughter's arm, half of which is missing. Her jeans are nothing but tatters, and her shoes have been shredded, revealing her pale feet.

All this is too much for Francine, who can no longer bear the sight. She breaks into hysterical tears and collapses onto Lee's body, hoping against hope that there is some way to save her baby girl. Sadly, there is no sign of life in the girl's body; no breathing, not a shred of warmth, nothing. Lee, her first-born child, was gone.

May slowly breaks out of her trance, her mother's sobs bringing her back to reality. She was a woman who generally was very angry with the world, and openly expressed her discontent. It should be noted, however, that she treated her daughters like angels; not a single time had she lay a hand on them in any way other than to give them a spanking when they were toddlers. Francine was the best mother anyone could ask for, even if she was a little hard to get along with sometimes.

Finally, May gets up and walks over to her mother. She embraces her mother in a hug, and Francine cries into her daughter's shoulder. Neither of them says anything; nothing needs to be said. While they hug, other things in the trailer begin levitating. One of these is Marie, who does not know that the crystal bracelet she had been examining earlier has latched itself onto her wrist…

***

In one of the cul-de-sacs of the small town, there is not a single house left standing intact. Every building has been reduced to smoldering rubble, and those left alive have not dared to venture forth from their homes. The only one wandering the streets is a young boy with tan skin, who has a broken watermelon atop his head; in his hands is a length of pipe with a wooden plank tied to the top.

Johnny is tired and in pain. During the destruction of Peach Creek, he was injured while fighting some kind of lizard-man. He had skin like steel and claws sharp enough to tear through a metal pipe as though it were paper. If it hadn't been for a well-timed smoke bomb, Captain Melonhead would have been devoured alive. So now, he is searching the cul-de-sac where he grew up for any survivors of the attack.

"HELLO!" he shouts as loud as he can, "IS ANYONE THERE?! HELLOOOOOOOOO!" As each second passes without a response, Johnny can feel his despair growing. He stumbles along, and then collapses a moment later, his broken rib aggravating him too much.

The boy turns his head to Plank and listens to what his friend has to say. "What's that, Plank? You say there's got to be some people out there? Plank, I don't know how to tell you this, old buddy, but it doesn't look like there is anybody…" Tears well up in the corner of his eye, but he wipes them away with a swish of his sleeve.

"Now's not the time to cry," he mumbles, "A hero doesn't cry." However, as he tries to calm down, an image of Rolf, leader of the Urban Rangers and his closest friend, flashes before his eyes. Johnny cannot bear it anymore. The tears held in his eyes are released as the boy clenches his hands in fists. "ROOOOOOOOOOOOOLF!" he sobs, but there is no one nearby who can hear him. As he cries, the sound of someone else's howls of despair reaches his ears.

Johnny thinks to himself, "Survivors!" and he wipes away the tear stains on his face before running in the direction of the sobs. He runs into the cul-de-sac to find a little, red-haired girl on the front stoop of a destroyed house. She is wearing a dirty, pink tank-top and a torn pair of blue jeans. From head to toe, she is coated in dirt and grime, but Johnny can still recognize her.

He asks, "Sarah, is that you?" but she ignores Johnny, something clenched in her hands. Cautiously, Johnny takes a few steps towards her to get a better look at the thing in her hands. Upon closer inspection, the young hero realizes what it is: a warped, melted retainer. It, too, is covered in filth, but Johnny knows who it belongs to.

"Dear God, they even got Jimmy."

Hesitantly, he reaches a hand out to Sarah, in an effort to empathize with her and show her sympathy. When his hand makes contact, however, the girl spins around and shouts, "DON'T TOUCH ME!" Her cry is followed by a fist to Johnny's face, sending him flying into the wall of what used to be the Dibny's house.

"How in the world did she do that?!" he asks himself. As he crawls from the wreckage, he clutches the side of his face in pain. She must have shattered his jaw with that punch! Before he realizes it, Sarah is on top of him, trying to destroy him with more explosive punches. This time, however, Captain Melonhead is ready for the assault, and he nimbly dodges her fists. Johnny takes this time to examine Sarah, and finds that there is something very, very wrong with her.

First, her eyes are glowing. Not in the normal sense, like a young child finding a shiny, new toy underneath their Christmas tree, but rather, they are shining with a golden-orange hue. They are like tiny orbs of fire set within her face. Streaming forth from her shimmering eyes are tears of the same color, covering her face. Her hands are surrounded by a strange, flame-like energy; this appears to be the source of her super-powered punches. In fact, this light is surging from almost every pore on her body now, and her skin develops cracks in it. Despite this, Sarah does not falter in her assault on Johnny. She only intensifies the attack.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" she howls again, the golden energy bursting from her mouth now.

Johnny throws his melon helmet off his head. "Sarah, it's me! It's Johnny!" Suddenly, Sarah stops throwing her punches, and stands perfectly still. "That's right," he continues saying, using this lull in combat as a chance to calm her down, "It's me, Johnny. You know, the goofy, bald kid who hangs out with you guys? Talks to a hunk of wood a lot?"

Sarah blinks for a second, trying to quell her rage enough to remember the boy standing in front of her. "Jo…Johnny?" she asks slowly, trying to form the words in her head. Suddenly, her eyes light up in recognition. "Johnny! RUN!" While she was thinking, her skin had continued to crack and crumble, revealing golden energy boiling underneath. Now, her skin has nearly entirely broken off, and Sarah can feel something forming inside her; something that goes boom…

KA-BLAAAAAAMMMM! Johnny leaps away in the nick of time, the explosion barely grazing him; Plank is tucked safely away under his arms, so he knows his friend is fine. When he touches down on the ground, his main concern is for the girl who caused the explosion: Sarah.

"Sarah?!" he cries, "Sarah, can you hear me?!?" His call goes unanswered, so he dashes over to where the explosion occurred. There is no some smoke, but it is dissipating quickly; lying in a small crater is Sarah's body, unharmed and no longer glowing. Johnny leaps into the hole and gingerly gathers her in his arms. She is unconscious, but breathing.

Johnny breathes a sigh of relief, knowing that at least SOMEONE survived today. Once he has made his way out of the crater, he heads for where Sarah and Ed's house used to be. There is nothing left, of course, but Johnny feels it would be best if Sarah were at least in her own house when she woke up. IF she wakes up.

Amidst all the debris, Johnny is able to locate the TV room. "Okay, there's the TV," he says, looking at the remains of a television crushed underneath a wooden beam. "There's gotta be a couch somewhere!" A sound reaches his ear, and he looks down at Plank, who is still under his arm.

"You know where the couch is, Plank? Great!" He lets Plank fall to the ground and says, "Don't worry, I'll turn around so you can do your thing, buddy." Johnny turns away from Plank and waits for a moment while debris and wooden rafters fly over his head. When the debris stops flying, Johnny looks down at his leg, where Plank now rests. "Wow, old friend; that went fast!"

He stoops down to pick up Plank and walks into the TV room, which is now free of all the wreckage that had cluttered it before. Surprisingly, there is still a green paisley couch, largely intact with only a few holes in it.

Johnny gently places Sarah onto the couch and says to Plank, "Good job, buddy!" Then he takes a look around the cul-de-sac from the arm of the sofa. He deduces that there is not much he can do, and that he really should stop and let his broken ribs rest. Before he does, however, he wanders back to the crater Sarah left behind, and scouts out the ground until he finds what he is looking for: Jimmy's retainer. The tarnished metal ring in hand, Johnny walks back over to the couch in Sarah's house and falls back upon it.

He gently runs the retainer through his fingers. A tear falls from his eye, and he clutches the ring tightly to his chest. Slowly, he slips into unconsciousness, his hands firmly grasping Jimmy's retainer, his last possession left in this world.

***

_Shortly before the attack…_

_Ed made one last plea with the two. "Please! Don't leave…Somebody has to do it, don't you see? Somebody has to save the world!"_

_Nazz shook off his watery arm, and told him "Ed, I'm not sure the world needs our kind of help."_

"_Sorry, dude," Kevin said in a low voice, "But being the good guy ain't my thing, you know?"_

_Before the situation could escalate, a faint rumbling sound could be heard. The kids looked around the room, and saw that various toys were trembling and dancing with the rumble._

"_What is this?" Edd asked, almost afraid to know the answer…_

_Ed looked out through the window in his basement, and said, "Aw, God's crying again…"_

"_What're you talking about, Ed?" Eddy asked._

"_Look, Eddy: it is going to rain!" The taller boy grabbed his friend and pressed him against the glass. Eddy could now see clearly that there were storm clouds gathering overhead._

"_Crud, it really IS going to rain!" he groaned before turning back to Nazz and Kevin. The shorter boy told them, "I don't think it's a good idea for you guys to go out right now; the weather's getting' pretty nasty out there!"_

"_We'll take our chances," Kevin said, "You don't need to worry about us!"_

_Nazz waved her hand in goodbye, but did not say anything. As they walked out the basement door, there came a deeper, more violent quake._

"_Heavens!" Edd shouted, "Is this an earthquake? But we're in the least likely location to have such a powerful earthquake…"_

"_It is a CRISIS!" Ed hollered at the top of his lungs while he pulled Kevin and Nazz back into the room._

"_Let go of me, ya dork!" _

"_Ed, what are you talking about?!"_

_The element-shifting boy raised his arms to the heavens. "A crisis," he explained, "is a trial by fire for those with superpowers. The most powerful enemy yet is summoned forth from the bowels of the darkest corners of the universe, and the forces of good must unite in order to stop them from cutting a swath of destruction across all existence!"_

_Eddy knocked on his friend's head with an enlarged fist. "Newsflash, Lumpy: we ain't in one of your comics! This is reality!"_

"_I wouldn't doubt in Ed just yet, Eddy." Edd patted Ed's shoulder and said, "Please continue, Ed. Tell us, how do you know for sure that this is a crisis?"_

"_Well, usually there is trouble in the superhero community. In this case," he gestures over to Kevin and Nazz, "there are two who are unsure if the universe needs someone like them. Then, just as they hang it up, the biggest, most powerful enemy appears and destroys EVERYTHING! BOOM! Nothing is left behind!" To emphasize the last point, he smashes his nightstand. _

"_The heroes are sometimes scattered, but basically, they are unsure of how to fight this bad guy. Thankfully, there is always someone who can explain the enemy's weakness to them, and they are able to triumph!"_

_Edd pondered what his friend had just told him. He then asked, "What are the starting signs of a crisis, Ed?"_

"_Storm clouds and earthquakes, why?"_

_Gathering all the facts in his head, Edd came to a horrific conclusion. They just might BE in a crisis!_

"_So," Kevin grumbled, "What's this all mean?"_

"_It means," Edd said slowly, "we might be in the middle of a crisis ourselves."_

"_Get REAL, Double D!"_

"_I'm being serious here, Eddy! Think about it: ordinary people don't HAVE superpowers; they cannot alter the molecules that compose their bodies, they cannot alter the weather, and they cannot elongate themselves; they do not run at super-fast speeds, and they most certainly cannot fly and shoot lasers from their eyes! Who's to say that we, through some cosmic twist, have been chosen to be heroes, like in Ed's story?!"_

_Nazz put a hand on Edd's shoulder and said, "Double D, this is crazy! I can't understand our gaining superpowers any more than you, but I know for a fact that there aren't any supervillains gunning for Earth!"_

_As soon as Nazz finished speaking, a ball of fire crashed through the window in Ed's basement. Everyone began freaking out as the fire rapidly increased, but Edd and Ed combined their powers to put it out._

"_What was that?!" Nazz screamed._

_Ed cautiously looked out his shattered window and saw hundreds of fireballs raining down on the land outside. He backed away from the window slowly, and his face was frozen in fear._

"_Well, Lumpy?" Eddy asked, "What's happening?!"_

"_The end of the world…" he mumbled, shortly before the house began to tremble and shake. Everybody in the room began freaking out: Edd balled up on the floor and covering his head with his hands; Eddy took shelter under Ed's bed; Nazz clung tightly to Kevin, who was too scared to realize that the girl of his dreams had her arms wrapped around him. Ed staid frozen for another second before shouting, "SARAH!"_

_The boy shook himself from his trance and flew out of the room. "BIG BROTHER IS COMING TO GET YOU, BABY SISTER!" Unfortunately, just he began to ascend the stairs to the main floor of the house, the ceiling collapsed on him. Ed thought quickly, and saved his life by morphing his body into a puddle of water. Foundation and wood fell all around him, but Ed hardly felt a thing, besides fear for his sister._

"_Please be okay," he thought to himself. "If anything were to happen to you, Sarah, I don't know what I would do!"_

_Inside the room, the debris had fallen around the kids, but Edd had summoned a dome of air that encircled them all. The rest of Ed's room was not so lucky, and was demolished by the remains of the house. Nothing pierced Edd's wind shield, but he seemed to be straining himself in an attempt to keep it holding._

_Eddy saw this and crawled out from under the bed. "DOUBLE D," he shouted, "STOP THE TORNADO!" _

"_I CAN'T DO THAT, EDDY! WE'LL BE CRUSHED!"_

"_NO, WE WON'T!" Eddy stretched his body to cover all the kids in a protective dome. "DO IT!"_

_With a grunt of frustration, Edd dropped the wind shield and the debris rained down on top of Eddy. The elastic boy had to bite down on his lip to stop himself from screaming in pain. He had imagined it would hurt, but not this much! In another minute, the sound of falling debris ceased, allowing the kids a moment of relief, while Eddy was shouldered with the task of keeping the debris outside from harming his friends. _

"_I-Is it over?" asked Kevin._

"_I…I think so," Edd replied, though he was visibly shaking._

"_What about Ed?" Nazz asked._

_Eddy shouted, "I think that moron will be fine! I just wish he would hurry and get this junk offa me!"_

_As if he had heard Eddy's plea, Ed transformed into an acid that could eat away at wood and stone but not elastic. When he finished, he shouted into the Eddy-dome, "All clear out here, you guys!" _

_With Ed's okay, Eddy's body shrank back into its normal form. The boy had to stretch his back a little before he could stand back on his feet; holding up over a ton of debris had put a lot of strain on his body._

_The kids looked around at the basement: it was completely covered in pieces of Ed's house; surprisingly, Ed had gotten rid of the stuff that would have crushed the kids, but not the stuff above them, which was stuck in a makeshift ceiling. There was a cloud of dirt and dust in the air, making it difficult to breathe, but Edd summoned a zephyr to channel the wind through the broken basement window._

_The weather-altering boy looked himself over and shook his arms and legs to make sure that everything was still in one piece. "I'm fine," he concluded. "Is everyone else all right?"_

_Nazz let go of Kevin's arm and said, "Kevin and I are good, Double D."_

_Eddy twisted his back left and right to ease the pain. "You wouldn't happen to have any aspirin, would ya?" Other than the discomfort in his back, the elastic boy was fine._

_Ed, on the other hand, was an absolute mess: his body was breaking off into pieces and shifting at an erratic rate, morphing into bizarre forms. The molecule-changing lad was in a state of great distress, since he did not know where his sister was, nor if she was safe._

_He called out her name, "SARAH!" before his jaw broke off and transmogrified into cottage cheese._

"_Ed, pull yourself together!" SLAP! Eddy smacked his friend as hard as he could, sending the distraught boy into the wall, scattering his molecules even further. _

"_Now's not the time for you to be freaking out!" Eddy shouted. "You're the only one that knows what the heck is going on!"_

_For a moment, there was silence; then, slowly, the puddle Ed had become morphed into a vaguely humanoid form. Within a minute, Ed had gathered himself again, although his face was sagging with grief and despair. _

"_Sorry, Eddy," he mumbled quietly, "It's just that…I can't stop thinking about Sarah."_

"_There, there, Ed." Edd embraced his friend in a gentle hug. "We'll find her, safe and sound; don't you worry." He patted Ed's back as the taller boy cried heavily into his shoulder. There was a somber air that filled the room, until a high-pitched voice interrupts Ed's sobbing._

"_Looky here! Survivors!"_

_The children all turned to the remains of Ed's bed, where a naked, glowing girl was sitting. She had blue skin, and although she was naked, there was nothing exposed to them. Her hair crackled with electrical energy, and a little surged from her bottomless, white eyes. Energia had just located some survivors of the massacre._

"_Wh-Wh-Who are you?!?" Edd cried as he blushed insanely from the close proximity to a nude girl._

_The girl giggled. "Bonjour, je m'appelle Energia. I am so sorry, but I am afraid that I will have to destroy you now, per Monsieur Akuma's orders." She shot off the broken mattress and charged up a bolt of energy in her hand. Before she could fire, however, Ed fired a stream of glowing, red energy. _

"_Ouch!" she shrieked, flying backwards from the hit she had sustained. Energia collided with the damaged basement wall. She moaned a little before glaring at Ed._

"_That is the first time a human has hit me before." Energia peeled herself off the wall and rubbed the back of her head a little to ease the pain. "Who are you, you gold-and-purple menace?"_

_Ed steadied his crackling arm and said, "I am Elemento, the morphing boy! And you will not hurt my friends!" He released his hold on Edd and converted both of his arms into laser-light energy. Raw power surged forth from his hands as he stood ready for combat. Despite his serious demeanor, which even had Kevin quaking in his sneakers, Energia burst into laughter._

"_AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Monsieur, you are much too funny!" The energy-composed maiden floated into the air. "So sorry I cannot stay for long, but Akuma shall be wondering where I wandered off to if I am not back soon! For now, I shall be content with knocking you all out for a day or so." A blue light covered the entire room and made the children slump over, one by one. _

_Before he fell into slumber, Ed declared, "You…shall not…win…"_

"_Silly American, we already have!" She put her hand to her lip and pretended to blow Ed a kiss. "Au revoir!" With that, she departed from the basement, leaving everyone trapped inside. What Energia did not know was that before he went unconscious, Ed had altered his pinky toes into a gas that would counter the effects of her atomic restructuring._

_No more than ten minutes had passed before Nazz stirred from her slumber. When her eyes fluttered open, she found the boys standing around the room, their muscles tense and ready. _

"_What's up, guys?" she asked sleepily._

"_We're getting ready, in case anyone else tries to come after us," replied Kevin. "So far, no one's shown up, but you never know…"_

_There was silence in the room for a while longer before there came the sound of a distant rumbling. The ceiling of debris above the kids shook and trembled, dislodging a storm of dust and dirt, leaving them covered in a fine, gray powder coating. Edd lightened the burden on their lungs by driving the dust out of the basement window once again. Finally, when the quaking stopped, everybody relaxed; the ones who had done this to the cul-de-sac were gone._

_Edd began pacing around the room. "What're you doing, Double D?" asked Eddy, who had plopped down on Ed's bed._

"_I'm thinking," the hat-wearing boy replied, "there might be a way to get out of the basement."_

"_What do we do?" Nazz asked._

"_We combine our powers, that's what we do. Ed, I want you to change your arms into the blade of a bulldozer." He received a blank look from the brainless boy. "The front of the machine, Ed, the front! Eddy, when Ed pushes through the debris, you are going to block any debris that falls from Ed's arms. Nazz, since you and Kevin are the fastest, you two will go as soon as you can spot an opening in the ceiling."_

_Ed slapped his arms together and twisted them into a bulldozer blade. "What'll you do, Double D?" he asked his friend, who had not taken himself into the equation._

"_I'm going to stay here and summon a gale wind to drive away the dust, so that we can see clearly. Any questions?" When no one objected, Edd summoned up the familiar blue flames in his hands and said, "On my mark! Ready…set…GO!"_

_Ed converted his legs into jets of fire, blasting right up to the ceiling and smashing right through, raining debris and dust down onto the others. With his weather-altering powers, Edd managed to contain all the grit within a sphere of wind, while Eddy used his elastic body to catch the falling rafters and foundation. Once the rubble ceased to fall, Kevin and Nazz jetted out at top speed, leaving Edd and Eddy down in the basement._

"_Little help here?!" Eddy shouted as he strained his body to hold the debris. Edd flew over and levitated the wood with mighty winds, throwing them up and out of the basement. Eddy took this chance to relax his body, then he grabbed Edd's hand as the brainy boy flew them out of Ed's devastated room._

***

Suddenly, Johnny jumps up from the couch when he hears the sound of exploding wood, his metal pipes in his hands. Before he can strike, the boy is hit by something moving super-fast. Hoisted up into the air, Johnny recognizes his assailant, despite the dust that covers his body.

"Kevin?" he asks, "Is that you?"

"Johnny?! Holy cow, you gave me a heart attack, man!" The older boy sets the boy who he is currently strangling down onto the ground and he takes a look around at the remains of the cul-de-sac. "What the heck happened?!" he shouts, not sure he wants to hear the answer.

Using one hand to ease the pain on his throat, Johnny explains to Kevin what he saw transpire. He recounts donning his Captain Melonhead costume, dodging the rain of fireballs, and fighting the villain. Warm tears start to fill his eyes when he tells Kevin what happened to Rolf, and even Kevin can't stop the trembling in his knees.

"And that's all." Johnny finishes his story and plops down on the couch next to Sarah, who is still sleeping. "I don't know if there are any survivors, other than you, Kevin."

"Actually, Johnny, there're some others here." Kevin gestures up into the air, where Ed, Edd, and Nazz are currently hovering, Eddy hanging from Edd's arm. "We were down in the basement, waiting out the storm."

Before Kevin can regale Johnny with what happened, Ed cries out, "SARAH!" and crashes into the ground before gathering his baby sister in his arms. Johnny and Kevin watch as Ed cradles his sister like he did when she was an infant, their heads downcast.

Ed turns to face Johnny and, with tears in his eyes, asks "Is she-"

"Yeah, she's alive."

With this news, Ed wipes his tears from his face, just before they flood his eyes again. Now, however, they fall from pure joy. The elemental boy tears his eyes away from the girl in his arms and asks Johnny for the details of the attack, mostly the stuff that involved his sister. Edd and Nazz land beside Kevin and the entire group listens in as Johnny tells the story one more time.

"It happened like this: I was at the park with Plank, and we were playing in the sandbox. Plank said he wanted to build something; he said it was urgent, and that he could use a soda. Well, I ran back to the house to get some drinks, but when I got back, I found that Plank had wrapped up. What he had built was a miniature version of Peach Creek, complete with tiny versions of the people in the town. I knew, right then and there, that something had to be done to prevent this.

"I ran back into my treefort, where Plank and I changed into our costumes. If anyone could stop an invasion, it would be Captain Melonhead and Splinter, the Wooden Wonder! So we put on our uniforms and we felt this rumbling coming; I checked outside and saw that the weather was getting worse by the second. They were coming, I could feel it.

"Suddenly, this giant…ship thing, or something like that, appeared from the clouds. I think there was this man in armor on top of the ship; the only thing I remember is the fire. God, the fire was horrific: it went everywhere and destroyed everything; each blast was like that of a small bomb going off. Several came at our fortress, so Splinter and I jumped from the window and made our way to the cul-de-sac, hoping to prevent a disaster; that was when we came across the lizard-man. He was this giant brute, with enough power to tear through metal like it was butter! Man, this guy was like a monster! I got away by hurling a smoke-bomb into his eyes, but he did manage to punch me in the chest. Think he broke a couple of ribs…

"When I ran off, I headed for the cul-de-sac, making sure to remain hidden and covered, so as to avoid any other assaults. When I got there, however, I saw the man in armor holding Rolf in his hands. Rolf….Rolf looked like he was…like he was unconscious, probably not doing well. The armor guy then shouted something about evil winning, but I couldn't catch it all. I ducked behind some rubble and waited for the moment when they disappeared. And that's that."

Ed then asks, "But what about my sister, Captain Melonhead?" Johnny then tells Ed about his fight, and how Sarah had exploded with energy. The look on her brother's face is that of shock and awe, until he smiles and shouts, "MY BABY SISTER HAS SUPERPOWERS! We are like super-siblings!"

"Shut up, Ed," Sarah mumbles as she slowly comes to. She raises a shaky fist to hit her brother in the face, but she does not have the strength.

"Sarah! You are okay!" Ed sets the little girl down on the couch and then grabs her hands. "Do you need anything? Just ask big brother, and he will get it for you!"

Edd places a hand on his friend's shoulder and says, "Ed, I think we should let her rest for a second. She just woke up, after all." The larger boy relents and let his friend kneel down and whisper to Sarah. "Hello there, Sarah. How're you feeling?"

"Thirsty…"

Edd nods and summons up a slight trickle of water from the air. He motions with his hands to bring it into Sarah's mouth, quenching her thirst. Her eyelids flutter open when she saw the blue flames in his hands, but she says nothing. Finally, she has had her fill and manages to sit up a little.

"Thanks, Double D." Tenderly, she reaches out a hand and touches his head. Edd blushes slightly, but takes her hand and caresses it gently to remove any discomfort from her body. It is a tender scene, and even Kevin is touched by how docile Sarah is behaving, and how Edd is so careful in helping her.

When Sarah's eyes open a little more, Edd asks, "Sarah, can you tell me what happened? Johnny tells me that you…blew up; do you know why?"

"I…I remember feeling angry. I remember…oh God, Jimmy!" Her eyes shoot open and she latches onto Edd, her eyes flooding with tears. She bawls openly and loudly, occasionally choking out Jimmy's name. Johnny reaches out to her and presents the twisted retainer, but Eddy holds his arm back.

"Not right now, man. She don't need any reminders." He says this solemnly, which is so unlike Eddy. It seems that even this situation has been too much for the jokester to bear, and he has turned melancholy from the day's events.

At last, Kevin cannot take the crying. He says to Nazz, "I'm going to look for survivors in the town."

She nods. "Be careful," she tells him, but he is already gone. Nazz knows the real reason why he wanted to go: his mother and father. Since his mother worked downtown, she might have been caught in the explosions; Kevin's father, likewise, worked in the downtown area, in a garage, where he repaired motorcycles. Either of them could have been injured, or possibly…no, it's best not to think about it.

Johnny passes Jimmy's retainer to Ed and says, "Since Kevin's checking the town, I think Eddy and I should check the cul-de-sac."

"Right behind ya, Johnny."

The two wander off to the other houses, to salvage whatever or whoever they could find. This leaves Edd, Ed, Nazz, and Sarah in the ruins of the Mason household. Sarah was not going to stop crying anytime soon, so neither Ed nor Edd could leave her. Nazz glances back and forth between the boys before asking, "Is there anything I can do to help, Double D?"

He thinks for a second. Kevin has gone to the town; Johnny and Eddy are looking through the houses. Where else would there be people? In that moment, Edd shivers violently and puts past encounters behind him.

"Nazz, I need you to fly to the trailer park and check on the Kanker sisters," he says hesitantly. Edd may not have liked the Kankers, but they did not deserve to die. "If there are any injured people, bring them here and I'll do my best to help."

Upon receiving her mission, Nazz flies into the gray sky and heads off towards the trailer park, in search of the three sisters that made their lives a nightmare.

***

"So," Johnny asks Eddy as the two boys dig through the remains of the Pickles household, "Do we know if our parents are okay?"

"Give me a second." He puts a finger to his chin before responding. "Well, my mom and dad are out on a business trip, and so are Edd's. Ed's dad works downtown, so we won't know how he's doing for a while. But his mom said she was going to be heading into Lemon Brook today, so I think she's fine, unless the fire hit them too. What about your folks?"

"They're down in South America on a trip through the rainforest."

"Cool."

They dig a little further until Johnny stops and asks, "What about Nazz and Kevin? Do you know where their parents would be?"

Despite himself, Eddy chuckles darkly. "Johnny, there ain't no way I know what happened to them! Besides, it's not like close with 'em or anything."

"Fine. I just figured, y'know, we might be able to find out whether or not their parents were home."

"Don't you worry, Johnny." Eddy stretches an arm out and says, "We'll find SOMEONE here in all this." With a renewed vigor, the boys dug through the rubble faster, their hopes higher than they have been all day.

***

When Nazz flies down into the smoldering trailer park, her hair has fallen into her face from the rain. She shakes her head to get rid of the excess water, but the rain continues to pour from the heavens, dousing the flames of the day, although it is not enough to put out the burning trailer that belongs to the Hall family. They are no lingering in the rain; Carter moved them to a covered area nearby.

"Geez, even with the rain, that fire's not going out!" Nazz thinks to herself. "Maybe I should help." She takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with cool air, and then exhales a mighty gale past her lips. The wind, combined with the rain, slowly but surely douses the flames, until there is nothing left. The trailer, or what is left of it, has been salvaged.

Her work done, the blonde girl smiles. She's happy that could have been of use to someone. Then she remembers why she came here, and sets about looking for the Kanker's trailer. Nazz's eyes glow a strange, blue color as she peers inside the trailers that are still intact. Surely, they must have survived!

At last, she spots a trailer that holds a crying blonde girl and an unconscious, blue-haired girl. Nazz grits her teeth; hopefully, Marie is just sleeping, and not-

"Snap out of it, Nazz!" she tells herself. "They've got to be alive!"

She runs over to the trailer and climbs atop the crushed mobile home that it rests upon. Using a bit too much strength, she wrenches open the door, tearing it straight from its hinges. "Oops," she mumbles before shouting into the trailer, "Hello? Is there anyone in here?"

"Who's there?!" an older woman screeches, her voice sounding choked and forced.

"My name is Nazz Zor'ell, and I live in a cul-de-sac not too far from here. I know the girls that live here, and-"

"Nazz?! Is that you?!?"

May lets go of her mother and flies over to Nazz, her long, blonde hair billowing behind her. She wraps her arms around the girl and holds onto her tightly. Even though the two of them have never really spoken before, May looks up to Nazz a good deal, and has wanted to be friends with her for some time. Now, her role model is here, in her home, to help her and her sister.

As she cries on her shoulder, May sobs hysterically, with various items in the trailer levitating through the air. Nazz notices this and wrenches May off of her. She asks, "May, what's going on? Why is everything floating?!"

"I don't know!" she screams. "I had this really bad headache; it got so bad, I felt like my head was gonna burst! I must have passed out, because when I woke up, I was in my bed. And the weird thing was that everything in my room was floating!"

Nazz pauses for a second, and wonders if May has gotten superpowers, like her and her friends. "We'll worry about that later," she says, "Right now, I need to know if your sisters are here."

May sobs again at the mention of the word 'sisters'. She wails loudly, and seems utterly inconsolable. It is Francine, their mother, who has to deliver the bad news to Nazz.

"Kid, I'm…I'm Frankie, May's mother. Marie is over on the recliner, but Lee is…is…oh hell, just go see for yourself!" She brings Nazz over to the couch, where Lee's body rests, but Francine absolutely refuses to see the gruesome sight again.

The girl hesitantly opens the blanket and recoils when she finds Lee's gruesome body. A wave of nausea comes over her, but she holds it in. Now is not the time, nor the place.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly, "I'm so sorry." Nazz decides that it might be best for May and Marie to get out of the trailer and see their "boyfriends".

She kneels down so that she can look Francine in the eye. "Ma'am, do you, by any chance, know Ed Mason, Eddward Mardon and Eddy O'Brian?"

Ms. Kanker nods and says, "They're the boys my girls…my girls like. Why?"

"I can take May and Marie to them really quickly, and I know it would mean a lot to them if they saw their crushes. Would you mind if I took them there?"

"No, they can go. May!" The youngest Kanker sister stumbles into the room, her eyes red with tears. "You're going with this girl to see Ed and his friends, okay?"

"Ed?!" For a second, a smile crosses her face and she asks, "How does my hair look?" Despite the gravity of the situation, Nazz and Francine cannot help but smile at May's innate girlishness.

Nazz scoops up Lee's body in her arms and takes one last look at the poor girl. In her mind, she says, "Don't you worry, Lee: I'll take out whoever did this to you. I swear it."

"May, grab Marie and come with me." Nazz walks out the door, with May in tow. She carefully makes her way down the trailer and then stops when she reaches the ground. The cool rain continues to fall, and it washes away a little of the dirt and grime on Lee, revealing her pale, freckled face underneath. Nazz does not cry, but she feels her heart wrench at the sight of this girl, who has been a part of her life for the past year or so.

May climbs down the trailer with her sleeping sister in her arms, and asks Nazz, "How do we get back to the cul-de-sac?"

With a quick glance around, to make sure that no one is watching, Nazz says, "I'll show you." She pushes off the ground gently and flies up into the air. "Now, you try!"

At first, May stares in amazement and wonders how she can fly like that, and it isn't until she makes a few rocks levitate that she realizes Nazz means that she should use her powers to fly.

"Okay!" Focusing her mind, she feels herself slowly levitating into the air. May gawks and stares down below at the ground, which is now eight feet below her. She then laughs as she makes her way through the sky towards Nazz.

"Follow me," her role model says, and the two of them fly off toward the cul-de-sac, where a discovery had just been made…

***

"DOUBLE D! COME HERE!"

Edd gently picks up Sarah, who has fallen asleep upon his shoulder, and makes his way to Eddy and Johnny. They are standing in the ruins of Rolf's house, and their eyes are as large as tires.

"What did you find?" he asks.

"Get a load of this!" Eddy points to a wooden door that is directly under him. It is somewhat small, perhaps as big around as a large cardboard box, with a large, circular handle in the center. With a tug, the elastic boy opens it, revealing Rolf's parents, Deidra and Gregor Heinrich. They are surrounded by their farm animals, and there is a grave expression on their faces.

"You children come in here right now," Gregor says. "It's time for you to save the world!"

***

_What do Rolf's parents know about the Society of Sin? Will the other kids join in the battle?? What shall become of Rolf??? Tune in next time for a special, extra-long chapter of _ED JUSTICE!!!


	8. Chapter 8: I Am Become ED

**Ed Justice**

By The Mauve Lantern

**Chapter 8: I Am Become ED**

"Whoa, whoa, back up there, Mr. Rolf's dad; we're supposed to save the WORLD?!"

Eddy O'Brian was sitting in the dank, musty basement of the Heinrich household, next to his two best friends, Ed Mason and Eddward Mardon, as he listened to Gregor Heinrich told them that they were going to save the world. The extra-stretchable Eddy was rather taken aback by what the old farmer had told him, even though he expected to hear someone tell this to him sometime. After all, today seemed to have been ripped from one of Ed's comic books…

The town of Peach Creek, where Eddy and his friends lived, was attacked not an hour ago by some kind of supervillain. There were fireballs raining down from the sky, and they wiped out most of the town, though Eddy did not know this; he had been in the basement of Ed's house, discussing the idea of forming a team of superheroes with the two other kids that had gained superpowers, Nazz Zor'ell and Kevin West. The two pre-teens had opted not to make a super-team, partly because they felt they weren't fully ready to be heroes, but mostly because they were scared.

Then, before Kevin and Nazz could leave, the bombing of Peach Creek began, and the kids were nearly crushed by the rubble; if Eddy lacked his mutated body, and Edd was without his weather-altering powers, they would have died then and there. Thankfully, they had been able to push the rubble away, but they were confronted by a mischievous girl who tried to kill them. Ed, who can alter the molecules of his body, had stopped her, and had also negated the effect of the sleeping gas she filled the air with.

Once she left, they all woke up, and had combined their powers so that they could break out of the basement. They obliterated the ceiling above them, and were freed, only to discover that their entire cul-de-sac, as well as the surrounding area, had been ravaged by the powerful fireballs unleashed on the town. Kevin, with his super-speed, immediately located two survivors of the bombings: Johnny Wayne and Ed's sister, Sarah Mason.

Johnny filled in Eddy and his friends on what had happened: a team of supervillains had invaded the town, and were responsible for the death of Jimmy Fenton, who had been disintegrated by one of the villains. After felling Jimmy, the leader, who was referred to as "Akuma", had gone into Rolf's house kidnapped the boy, who was unconscious. They had left Johnny alone, even though he had tried to fight them off earlier. Once gone, Johnny, had searched the cul-de-sac for survivors, and found Sarah, who had unleashed her own superpower by generating a powerful explosion from her body. She fell asleep after fighting Johnny, and he took her to her living room, or what was left of it, and laid her on the couch, which had survived the explosions.

Now, the three Eds sit in the basement of Rolf's house, surrounded by farm animals, which are the only things that are keeping Ed smiling. The not-so-bright Ed boy was sitting with his legs crossed, gently petting a chicken that had found a bed in his lap. "Good chicken," he whispered, "good chicken…"

Gregor Heinrich kept a stern gaze on Eddy. "Yes, you children of Peach Creek are the only ones who can save the world," he said as he fingered a wooden cane. "All that transpired today was going to happen someday; this is all part of the test."

Edd's eyes bulged out. Ordinarily, he loved taking tests, but not something like this. "Wh-Wh-What kind of ttttttest?"

"The Trial of Heroes. Deidre, bring Gregor the Book of Knowledge!"

A tall, voluptuous woman eased her way through the crowded basement, a thick, ancient tome in her hands. "Here you go, dear husband," she said slowly as she choked back another sob. Rolf's mother had been sobbing uncontrollably since mid-day, when her husband and she had migrated to the basement, bringing with them the barest essentials to survive. Her son had been left behind, to go to town and pick up groceries, which left him open to the clutches of the Society of Sin.

"Forgive your weak mother, Rolf," she tearfully thought as she clutched her traditional necklace to her chest, "I have not the power to save you. Now, I must have faith in your friends; if your father is right, they are the only ones who can save you now!"

"Boys," Gregor started as he cracked open the book, "You are not the only ones who will fight the adversary."

"We won't?" asked Eddy.

"No, smaller-than-most Ed boy, you will not. There are others in the cul-de-sac that have special powers, yes?" When he received shocked looks from the Eds, he waved his hand through the air and said, "Yes, yes, Gregor can tell just by your faces. They are the pretty-young Zor'ell girl, angry-as-mad-goat Kevin boy, angry-as-mule Sarah girl, and talks-to-wood Johnny boy, yes?"

"How do you know all this, mister?!" Eddy shouted as he jumped from his seat. "Explain yourself!"

Gregor pushed the boy back onto the floor. "Calm yourself, greedy-for-money Eddy; it is all within the Book of Knowledge!" He quickly flipped through the pages of the book, until he came upon the page he was searching for. "This is how the Shepherd found out!"

When Gregor set the book down in front of the Eds, they all took a look at the open page, to see what he meant. It was one large, ornate illustration that featured eight people standing in a circle, with one person standing in the center. They were in silhouettes, but it was fairly easy to discern who was who in the picture. Beginning near the top of the page, and going clockwise, there was a man whose silhouette was composed of many colors, a man who was surrounded by lightning, wind, and rain, and a man who almost seemed to have tentacles for arms and legs. Next to the elongated man was a woman who had red light streaming from her head, a man who was crouched down with a runner's poise, and a man with a staff held at ready. After the staff-wielder, there were two women: one seemed to be engulfed in flames, and was howling to the sky, while the other had her arms held out at her sides, a blue aura shimmering around her body. In the center of the circle was a muscle-bound man whose form changed into that of a wolf's.

Eddy scanned the page for a moment before saying to Gregor, "I don't have a single clue what this is sayin'!"

"I…I think…this is US, Eddy." Edd's finger fell to the page, and he followed the figures in the circle. "If we start at the top: that would be Ed, me, you, Nazz, Kevin, Johnny and Sarah. But," he said as he turned to the others, "I have no idea who these other two are."

Ed perused the page one more time, and then he laughed, "That's May Kanker and Rolf, you guys!"

"WHAT?!"

"It's true, Eddy! Look, there's May's hair! And that kid in the center has really long hair, like Rolf!"

Edd carefully analyzed the figures before nodding and saying, "Ed's right. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Ed is right!"

Before they could talk for much longer, Johnny opened the door to the cellar and called in, "Hey, guys! Nazz and Kevin are back!"

"Bring them down, Johnny wood-boy!"

Johnny carefully made his way down the stairs, and was followed by Kevin, who was looking noticeably better than before. His red hat was not on his head at the moment, which left his rain-soaked hair open for the world to see. Placed carefully over his shoulder was Sarah, who was still sleeping soundly. Right behind him was Nazz, who helped May Kanker down the steps. Both girls were sopping wet, but May's sullen face immediately brightened when she caught sight of her crush.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" Kevin shouted as he deftly caught Marie. His question went unanswered as May shot through the air telepathically.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDD!" The buck-toothed girl threw her sister, who she had been carrying in her arms, and hurled herself at the element-shifting boy.

"KANKEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRR!" Ed tried to duck away from her tackle, but Edd and Eddy held him in place. With a heavy glomp, the boy went down to the ground, as May pressed her face against his filthy shirt.

"Oh, Big Ed! I didn't think we would see each other again! You're not going to believe what happened to me today, I--" When she remembered what happened, May began to sob heavily and uncontrollably as she buried herself even further into Ed's clothing.

The large boy did not know how to respond to this. THIS was the girl who had tormented him and his friends for the past year or so? The girl who did things that did unspeakable things to him?? The girl who insisted that she was, and always and forever would be Ed's wife??? Hesitantly, and with much caution, Ed wrapped his arms around her; surprisingly, this made her calm down slightly, as her sobs became less forceful.

Meanwhile, as Ed comforted May, Edd had gotten up to help Nazz and Kevin find a good place for Marie. "Is she all right?" the hat-wearing boy asked as he picked her up by the shoulders.

"She's breathing, if that's what you mean…" Kevin grumbled as he hoisted up her legs.

Deidra wandered over to the boys and told them, "Here, young ones: you can place her on this clean pile of hay; it is much better than the alternative." The boys nodded, and, with effort, hoisted the unconscious girl onto the stack of golden straw. "Kevin-boy, I'll take little Sarah for you." Rolf's mother picked up the little girl and held her in her powerful arms as she carried her over to another pile of hay.

While he carried her, Edd noticed the diamond bracelet that was wrapped around her wrist. It was the only thing about the girl that was not damaged in any way, nor was it discolored by soot. The diamond was as clean and perfect as if it came from a jewelry store. "What is that bracelet on her wrist?" he asked himself, though Nazz picked it up with her super-hearing.

"May told me that it's some bracelet that she stole from some flea market," the blonde girl replied.

Edd nodded, and decided to put the bracelet behind for later. Now, he needed to know what the rest of the town looked like. "Kevin, how is the situation in downtown Peach Creek?"

"It's not good, but there are a lot more survivors than I thought." Kevin pulled his hat from the pocket of his shorts, and he shook it dry before placing it on backwards atop his head. "Most of the buildings in town are collapsed, and there are plenty of people running around, terrified. But we've also got a bunch of ambulances and fire trucks out there, and even people from Lemon Brook are here to help."

"And how's your mother?"

Kevin scowls at Edd; he knew that the brainy boy was going to ask this. After all, everyone pretty much knew that that was the only reason he had gone into town in the first place. "She's fine," he grumbles to himself.

Edd smiles a little and replies, "I'm glad she's safe, Kevin." The two boys look each other in the eyes, and for once, they seem to be thinking on the same level, with Edd empathizing for Kevin. In that one moment, Edd felt like some of the animosity that Kevin bore for the Eds had vanished, if only a little.

The boy then asked Nazz, "What's the trailer park look like, Nazz?"

Nazz frowned, and she told Edd, "It's pretty bad, Double D. Everything's in absolute chaos and Lee…Lee's dead."

"My god…"

The three teenagers bowed their heads in solemn silence, and Edd could not help but shed a few tears. Then, for some reason, Kevin started to chuckle. Nazz glared at him, while Edd shot him a look that could kill, but his laugh only grew in power.

"What's so funny about this, Kevin?!" Nazz growled as she grabbed the boy by the collar.

"It's, heh, it's just that…we're crying over Lee. Lee. Kanker. Think about that: this girl has done a lot of bad things to the cul-de-sac since she and her freaky sisters moved here. They've harassed the Eds and me in sick ways, they've destroyed people's houses and lives, and yet," his voice began to break as he lifted his head up, revealing the lone tear that was falling from his eyes, "And yet…it…it hurts for some reason. Like there's something missing." His knees, which had begun to tremble, gave out on him, and he fell to the floor of the cellar, which he pounded with his fists.

"DAMMIT!" he shouted, "DAMMIT TO HELL!" Nazz crouched down and wrapped an arm across her friend's shoulders, and Kevin fell into her side as he sobbed his eyes out, his tears joining the rain that dripped down from his hat.

Touched deeply by the sight, Edd wiped his tears away, but they still came down. He turned his head to the hay pile where Marie rested, and he took a good, long look at the middle child of the Kanker family. Her blue hair was draped across her face, covering more of it than usual, and her pale skin was covered with soot; the clothes that she was wearing were torn, and she had cuts and bruises all along her body. On her face, Edd noted, was a peaceful face, sleeping soundly, if not happily. In that instant, the malice that the boy carried for this girl was wiped away, and he felt his heartstrings being tugged by the mere sight of what this over-confident girl had become: battered and broken, barely alive.

He bent down, so that he was closer to her, and reached out a gentle hand, which he used to brush away the azure hair that was in her eyes. Edd whispered, so softly that no one but Nazz could hear, "I'll find who did this, Marie. I'll find them, and I shall bring down judgment upon them. You and your sisters do not deserve this. I…I'll destroy them, completely and utterly; you have my word." When Nazz caught this, her face turned sour, but she said nothing as she embraced Kevin in a warm hug.

Edd wandered back over to Ed and Eddy, who was surprisingly quiet at the moment. When he sat down, Eddy quietly asked, "Is that true, Double D? Lee's…dead?"

"How did you hear us?"

"I stretched out my ear so that I could pick you guys up from across the room. Is it true or not?"

"Nazz was the one who was there, and considering how May has not stopped crying since she grabbed onto Ed, I highly doubt she's still alive…" Edd's head fell into his hands, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose. He felt very tired suddenly, and just wanted to make today disappear, and wake up in his bed, safe and sound.

Eddy scraped his shoes against the stone cellar. "Can't believe this is happening. I mean, first we lose Jimmy, then Rolf, and now Lee?! I mean, does someone up there hate us?"

"No," Gregor said, with an authoritative voice, "this is all part of a plan. And you children are a part of it!"

This gained the attention of all the kids in the basement, minus Sarah and Marie, who slept soundly. May lifted her head up off Ed's chest and she asked cautiously, "Pl-pl-plan? W-w-what kind of a p-p-p-plan?"

"It is time, children of Peach Creek, for you to save the world!"

***

_Meanwhile…_

In an airship, high above the Pacific Ocean, Rolf Heinrich stirred from his sleep. Every inch of his body ached, his throat was as dry and barren as the desert, and he smelled like rotten eggs. His eyes fluttered a few times as he tried to gain a better sense of his surroundings, and soon the blurry picture gave way to a clear vision that made the farm boy wish that he were still sleeping. Rolf had woken up in a prison cell of some kind, made from a crimson metal, and his arms were chained to the wall behind him. Outside the cell, there was only a flickering light, casting the light into intermittent darkness and light. The room was not large, and it was probably no bigger than the tool shed in his backyard. Across from him was a large, onyx door that slid open, revealing a tall man in armor and a shorter, stockier man clad in a black robe and hood.

The armor-covered man carried himself proudly, and Rolf felt nothing but terror fill his heart as this man glared at him maliciously. "So, you are alive," he growled as he sized up Rolf with his eyes, "Good. This ceremony could not have been done if you had died in the destruction of that miserable town."

"Wh…What have you done…to Peach Creek, you…vile fiend?" Rolf asked as his vice slowly returned to him.

A sharp crack from a whip silenced Rolf as the man in the hood said, "You shall not address the lord Akuma in that way, cur!"

"Ak…Akuma?"

"Yes, Heinrich, Akuma," the man in armor snarled as he held his palm out, "I am the master of the flames, and the one who shall annihilate this miserable world. My society will put an end to your family's wretched legacy once and for all, and the heroes prophesized in the Book of Knowledge shall never come to be!" A black flame burst forth from his hand, and he hurled it at Rolf, scorching the boy's revealed chest. The foreign boy howled in pain, but it was enough to shake him to his senses.

Rolf glared at Akuma. "You shall not triumph, master of the matchsticks, for Rolf knows that his friends will come to save him!" He then spat at the armored villain's feet, which earned him another crack of the whip.

"Silence, whelp!"

Akuma spun on his heels and shouted, "Obelisk, come! We have to begin making preparations!" The hooded man followed him out through the door, and then it slid shut, leaving Rolf alone again in the darkness.

"I am so sorry for the master's attitude." Rolf searched the room for the source of this high-pitched voice, and found it in a blue girl, who was hanging down from the ceiling. "Usually he is…well, okay, he is usually like this, hehehehe!"

"Who are you, cackling blue girl?"

"Oh, forgive my rudeness, monsieur! Je m'appelle Energia, and I thought you would appreciate some company before your execution!"

"Execution?!? What tom-foolery is this?!"

"Who is Tom Foolery, and what does he have to do with this?"

Rolf sighed and lowered his head. "Does giggling-blue Energia girl know anything at all about what shall come of Rolf?"

She put a finger to her chin and pondered for a moment before replying, "Nope, no clue whatsoever!"

"Then why have you come?"

"To talk, silly! I figured, "Oh, this prisoner is going to be lonely, all separated from his friends and family…I shall cheer him up!" So, here I am!" She flew down from the ceiling and then crouched in front of Rolf's cage and asked him, "So, that gold and purple-skinned boy from that town…what's he like?"

Again, Rolf sighed heavily. "Why did this have to happen to the son of a shepherd?"

***

While Akuma and Obelisk were busy torturing Rolf in his prison cell, the remaining members of the Society of Sin were wandering around the bridge of their airship. Most, if not all of them, were bored, and were looking for something to do. Rampage, Puma Loco, and Spektros were gathered around, peering through the windows of the ship at the dark skies around them, while Heavy Metal was making minor adjustments to her suit of armor.

After gazing out into the sky for long enough, Rampage arched his back in order to crack the joints. "Well, this is pretty fraggin' boring. Anybody wanna play cards?"

"No, señor," Puma Loco replied, "Spektros cheats."

"Oh, I do not!" the doctor shouted as he crossed his arms. "If anyone cheats, it's you, Alberto! After all, you're the one with super-speed!"

From her seat across the bridge, Heavy Metal amplified her voice so that the men could hear her. "Will you idiots PLEASE shut up? I'm trying to recalibrate the aim on my arm cannons, and it's difficult enough without you all arguing…" Then, under her breath, she murmured, "Men…"

Spektros readjusted the glasses on his face as he smirked. "Please, Leila, you could do that in your SLEEP!"

"You got me, Isaiah; I was looking for a way to make you all shut up."

"Why you little--!"

Before Rampage could charge her, Puma Loco had wrapped a cord of green material around him. "Must you do this every time there is an argument between us, Scott?"

"Fraggin' bastich tryin' ta insult the main man…"

At that time, Akuma strode back onto the bridge, with Obelisk in tow. He observed his minions at work, and he said, "How many times have I said not to kill each other? Can you not wait for the annihilation of this putrid world in peace?"

"It's rather difficult, Lord Akuma, for retched infidels like them to understand, Lord Akuma," Obelisk smirked under his hood as he knew that all his boot-kissing would pay off in the new age that was to come.

"Obelisk?" the fire lord asked.

"Yes, Lord Akuma?"

"Be silent."

"Yes, sir…"

Akuma strode out to his throne in the center of the bridge, and he sat down elegantly, his hands crossed in front of him. He asked the pilot of the ship, "How much longer until we return to Berzerkystan, Ahmed?"

"Thirty minutes, Lord Akuma."

The fire lord rapped his fingers upon the arm of his chair and thought to himself, "I shall defeat the prophecy yet! The super-children, if there are any left, will not have the power to take out my army. But just to be safe, I'll call in for a favor from the Iron Gauntlet…"

***

"Mr. Heinrich, you have not told us: exactly HOW are we supposed to save the world?" Edd was still sitting in Rolf's basement, only now, May was sitting beside Ed. The children were all paying attention to Gregor Heinrich, who was now standing.

"You all hold the power to fight this enemy, and if all of you combine your might, you will hold the key to saving the planet Earth!" The older man looked back and forth between the kids, and sighed when he realized that not a one of them believed that they could do this. "It is all within the book," he said as held the book so that they could all see, "Each of you are in here: no-neck Ed boy, you can change the very things that make up your body, yes?"

"Sir, yes SIR!" Ed shouted as he let go of the chicken in his lap.

"And Ed-boy-with-two-Ds, you can control the very storms that rage through the sky, yes?"

"I…I suppose…" whispered Edd.

"Angry-Kevin boy, you can run faster than the wind, correct?"

Kevin smirked. "Well, I don't mean to brag, but…"

"And beaver-tooth May girl, can you not move things with your mind?!"

May looked shocked. "H-How did you find out about that?" she asked, "I just found out about this a while ago!"

"It is all in the book," Gregor placed the book down, "and it all talks about the trials to come for you."

Before anyone else could start talking, Johnny spoke up. "You guys," he said with some pain, due to his broken ribs, "Why are we arguing about this? Rolf is our friend, and this is the world we're talking about here! It's our duty to use our powers to save everybody, and everyone in it! Plank says we can do it, and I believe in him! And darn it, if we're not gonna do it for the world, then we should do it for Jimmy, Lee, and for Peach Creek!"

Nazz smiled and stood up. "Johnny's right: after what those guys did to our home, what else can we do but kick their butts?" And just like that, one by one, the others got behind their friends.

"Yeah, I'll give 'em hell for what they did to Marie and Lee!"

"Those jerks won't know what hit 'em!"

"For once, Shovel-chin's right! Let's kick their evil butts!"

"BUTTERED TOAST AND GRAVY!"

"Yes, we'll do it for Peach Creek and for all our friends!"

Gregor and Deidre smiled proudly at the children. It wasn't that long ago, after all, that they had been selfish brats who thought only of acquiring jawbreakers and quarters. Together, with all their powers, they just might be able to stop the Society.

Amidst all the cheering, a young, feminine voice picked up, gaining the attention of the others in the room. "Wh…where am I?" Sarah rose up from the pile of hay and looked around the room. "What're…what're you guys doing here?"

"BABY SISTER!" This time, Ed launched himself at Sarah and wrapped her in a tight hug. "I thought for sure that you would never wake up!"

"Get off me, ya big lug!" she shouted as she punched her brother in the head. "And will SOMEBODY tell me what the heck is going on here?!"

"Peach Creek's been bombed, Lee Kanker's dead, Ed can turn into anything that's not human, Edd can control the weather, Kevin's really fast, Nazz is Supergirl, Captain Melonhead is back, May Kanker can move things with her mind, you can make explosions, and I'm made of plastic." Eddy took a deep breath after telling Sarah everything.

The angry little girl blinked a couple of times before replying, "I don't believe you." Eddy responded by stretching out a finger from half-way across the room and poking her in the head. Sarah screamed, but Eddy just continued to smirk.

"Believe me now, ya little squirt?"

Before they could fight, Deidre stepped between the two of them. "Now is not the time for fighting! We must make our way to the iron bird that my husband has built for your children!"

"Iron bird?" Ed asked. "Is it like a chicken?"

"Not quite, foolish boy," Gregor patted the element-shifting boy on the shoulder, "It is like one of your airplanes, large enough to fit you and your friends."

"Sweet!" Kevin shouted as he fell in line with the others.

Edd looked at Gregor and asked, "How did you make this?"

"To tell you a secret, Gregor got it over the Internet."

***

The children were all led out to an underground chamber, where a massive machine was waiting for them. It was easily the size of half a football field, with a wingspan that was equal to that, if not more so. The machine was roughly shaped like a bird, and appeared to be more like a customized jumbo jet than anything else. It was perched on things that resembled talons, and it had a large window in the front, which would allow them to see out the front.

"THAT'S the iron bird?" asked Eddy as he ran out in front of the group.

"How did you afford all this, Mr. Heinrich?" Edd turned to question the man, but the bearded man just looked away.

"Gregor did it by switching his money to Gecko Insurance. So easy, even a troglodyte could do it!"

There was a ramp that appeared below the bird, which the kids got onto. Edd was the last one to get on, because he was stopped by Deidre, who had a worried look engraved onto her face. "Eddward," she said slowly, forgetting the bizarre title attached to his name, "Please bring back my son. I beg of you, please bring back my Rolf safe and sound!"

"You have my word, Mrs. Heinrich," the most responsible Ed replied as he tipped his hat to her. "I'll come back with Rolf, on that you can trust me!" Rolf's mother was pleased by this, and she backed away to give her husband room to talk to the boy.

"Eddward-hat-boy," he said, "The way you get the plane moving is by pressing the blue button up in the front. Green allows it to hover, yellow is for the lights, purple activates the computer in the back, orange is to stop flying, and indigo is for stealth-mode." He then looked deep into Edd's eyes and said slowly, "Whatever you do, DO NOT PRESS THE RED BUTTON! That is absolutely crucial!"

"Un-Understood, sir!" Edd made his way up the ramp, and found that there was button on the side that read, "RAMP UP". The boy pressed the button, and the ramp closed on the bird. The last thing he saw was Gregor giving him a salute, which he returned, though he was still unsure if they could do this kind of thing.

***

Eddy wandered into the cockpit of the iron bird, where he discovered the array of buttons and switches that controlled the machine. "Geez, this thing looks so simple, ED could pilot it! Now, which one makes this piece of junk fly? This red one looks important…" Before he could press it, Nazz grabbed his arm.

"Mr. Heinrich just said that that was the button we shouldn't press!"

"Well, ex-CUSE me! I don't have super-hearing, so that was a little lost on me!"

As they bickered, the communicator on the console began buzzing, but it went unnoticed by Eddy and Nazz, but Kevin ran in and picked it up. "Yello?"

"Hello, Kevin-boy; are you ready for take-off?"

"Good as we'll ever get, Mr. Heinrich!"

"Excellent. Gregor shall open the door to the hangar. Godspeed, Kevin."

"Thanks, Mr. Heinrich." Kevin paused for a moment before saying, "We'll be back before ya know it!"

"I hope so, dear boy, I hope so."

Once the door was completely open, and the kids were in their seats, Edd asked, "Is everyone ready?"

"Hit the stupid button, Double D!"

"Yes, Sarah…" CLICK! The bird immediately shot out of the hangar, leaving the kids to hold on tightly to their seats. They shot right out of the ground, and they found themselves high in the air over Peach Creek.

Johnny pressed himself up against the glass. "Look, Plank! We're actually flying! This is so cool!"

"I know, right?"

"Aw, Nazz, you can fly all you want though! Plank and I don't have any powers, y'know…"

Eddy propped his feet up on the chair in front of him and said, "Hey, I'm right up there with ya, Johnny."

"Eddy," Edd reminded him, "You have powers. You can stretch your body to incredible lengths!"

"Yeah, but I'm always getting the snot kicked out of me during fights! For once, I just wish I could be useful."

Once again, Gregor's voice buzzed in over the communicator with a mechanical hum. "Hello?" he asked, "Can you children hear Gregor?"

Kevin picked up the communicator and told him, "We hear ya just fine, Mr. Heinrich; what's up?"

"The sky, dear boy, and all of you. Now, Deidre already programmed into the bird the location of your destination. It is Rolf's homeland, Berzerkystan, and the ones that took him, the Society of Sin, are holed up there. The bird will locate Rolf through a DNA scan, and you will find the son of a shepherd wherever he is being held. Once again, best of luck." The message ended with a click, and Gregor's voice disappeared.

Sarah, the only one out of the loop asked, "So, who's the Society of Sin? Sounds like something from one of Ed's comics!"

Edd pressed the purple button and then headed for the tail of the bird. "Let's see if it's on the ship's computer…" He reached a large, glowing screen that displayed a blank, blue screen that featured a bar and a keyboard. Edd typed in "Society of Sin", and he found the results immediately.

_A terrorist group located in central Berzerkystan, the Society of Sin has existed for centuries, acting as a mafia of sorts for the unstable Middle East. Since the birth of the organization, they have been dedicated to the destruction of all that is good in the world, and have attempted to resurrect the demon god Dieskrad, who will bring about an age of darkness for the Earth. Only the sacrifice of the descendent of the hero that sealed him will bring back Dieskrad, so it can be said that that is the main function of the Society. The current members are as follows:_

_Scott Tenorman (a.k.a. Rampage): a former US Marine, Tenorman was experimented on by the government in the hopes of creating a breed of super-soldiers. While being subjected to the tests, Tenorman was mutated, becoming ten times stronger than the most powerful human, and grew lizard-like attributes, including black scales and a tail. Because of the experiment, Tenorman has developed an immense hatred of America, and seeks to annihilate it, along with the rest of humanity._

_Leila Navaros (a.k.a. Heavy Metal): once a scientist for the famed S.T.A.R. Labs, Navaros was forced to leave the labs when she began attempts to create the perfect female human being. After this, Navaros worked for the military and designed a battle suit that could be used in combat by the American government. When she discovered that the armor prototype, which was piloted by a woman, was blown up by the benefactors of the project, she went AWOL and stole the armor for herself, in the hopes of destroying every suit that was made._

_Yvette Tiandem (a.k.a. Energia): the youngest member of the Society, Tiandem is a girl who was accidentally exposed to cosmic energies, which broke down her body and reduced her to mere molecules. After a time, she managed to pull her body back together, and since then, she has become a symbol of rioters and anarchists around the world. Her motives for joining the SS are unknown, but it would seem that she wishes to simply cause chaos._

_Alberto Fortunado (a.k.a. Puma Loco): one of the few remaining, active supervillains from the Golden Age of superheroes, Fortunado has existed for years as the super-fast villain Puma Loco. His speed supposedly comes from the mystical totem that he wears on his belt, though Fortunado claims that it actually originates from an experiment involving heavy water._

_Isaiah S. Petroski (a.k.a. Spektros/Doctor Spektros): Petroski originally was a scientist who studied the paranormal, and was fired from his position at S.T.A.R. Labs for sending employees to their doom in an attempt to study a pocket universe called "The Ghost Zone". He began developing phantasmal technology, and now uses it to further his studies within the Society of Sin._

_Obelisk (no other alias available): There is no information on Obelisk, other than he is the right-hand man of Akuma, leader of the Society, and that he lacks any special powers or abilities._

_Akuma (no other alias available): Akuma, self-proclaimed "Lord of Fire", is capable of generating intense flames and releasing them in any form he desires. He is the leader of the Society of Sin, and has been involved in the murders of over 3,000 people._

"Dear God," Edd whispers as he stares at the screen, "These are monsters, not men and women!"

"Yup!" Ed grimaces as he takes a look at the profiles. "Those are actual supervillains!"

Sarah jumped up in her seat and shouted, "Whatever! I'll take 'em all out!"

"Settle down there, squirt." Kevin pushed her back into her chair. "We need a plan."

"I agree," Edd said as he made his way back to the front of the ship, "and I think I may have an idea."

"Spill it, Sockhead."

"Patience, Eddy. Here's how we'll do this. We'll burst in, while we still have surprise, and we'll split them up, rather than fight them all at once. Ed, I want you to battle Energia, since you were able to counter her earlier."

"Roger!"

"Eddy, you and Nazz will double-team Rampage…"

"Gotcha, Double D!"

"You got it, Double D!"

"Kevin, naturally, will combat Puma Loco…"

"Like there was any doubt."

"May, you'll take on Heavy Metal…"

"I'll take that woman out!"

"And I'll battle Akuma, since I might be able to quell his flames with torrential rain. Now, Johnny, since you are the only one without powers, you would be best suited to engage Obelisk."

"Plank says that's a good idea!"

Before he went on, Edd walked over to Sarah. "Sarah," he said, with his voice lowered, "You will have to fight Spektros. I need you to promise me that you won't kill him in this fight. Can you do that for me?"

The little girl balled up her fists, and for a moment, it seemed like she would explode again, but she bottled up her fury and put on a fake smile. "Okay, Double D, whatever you say."

"I'm sorry I had to ask that of you. Sincerely, I am."

"It's okay, don't worry about it!"

Seeing that everyone was distracted by Edd's planning, Eddy took this time to examine that ever-so-enticing red button. He slithered over to the control panel and searched the crimson button out, until he finally found it. "Let's see what you really do…" he thought to himself.

CLICK! When he pressed the button, a female voice came over the intercom. "SELF-DESTRUCT MODE ACTIVIATED. THIRTY SECONDS TILL DETONATION!"

"CRAP!" Eddy shouted as the lights in the bird started blinking red while an alarm went off.

"Eddy, what in God's name did you DO!?" Edd hollered as he ran over to the panel.

"I PRESSED THE RED BUTTON!"

"You never press the red button, Eddy! Daffy Duck says so!"

"SHUT UP, ED!"

Edd pressed the red button again, hoping to deactivate the self-destruct, and it, somehow, stopped. The mechanical voice said, "SELF-DESTRUCT DEACTIVATED." He took several deep breaths in relief and then turned to Eddy and said, "Absolutely, under NO circumstances, are you ever, EVER to press the red button!"

"Okay, okay!" Eddy muttered as Kevin dragged him back to his chair. Once seated, Edd walked over and chilled the air around Eddy, making him go stiff. "What the heck is this for?!"

"So you won't move again. I've taken the liberty of cooling down the air around you, so that you will not be able to move a muscle until we get to Berzerkystan!"

"You sadistic mother—"

"—Anyone up for cards?" Johnny asked as he pulled a deck out from below the control panel.

***

After an hour of flying, the kids found themselves nearing land once more, and Edd told them that they would soon be over the Middle East, and would be in Berzerkystan. "From here on out," he said as he pushed the indigo button, "We'll be going in stealth-mode, so that they won't be able to track us." Now that the bird was invisible, everyone began to prepare themselves for battle. They were still weary from the attack earlier that day, but they had to overcome it if they were to come out alive.

Johnny got up and made another speech to his friends at that time. "Guys, I just wanted to say that if we don't make it out of here today, well, it's…it's been swell."

"Same here, Johnny," Kevin said as he clapped the boy across the back.

"We're gonna give 'em WHAT FOR!" Ed shouted as his body began morphing again, breaking down into ice cream and soda.

Eddy chuckled at his friends' excitement, but deep down, he felt that something was wrong. He hadn't felt this bad since this morning, when he had gotten a stomachache just before the decimation of Peach Creek. This wasn't a good sign…

***

_Twenty minutes later…_

"Lady Navaros!" A Berzerkystani soldier called out to the armor-clad commander, who was still recalibrating her sonic cannon.

"What's the problem?"

"Our sensors have picked up an unidentified object in our airspace."

"How far is it?"

"It's hard to say; it appears to be about 5,000 feet above us, but surely our computers would have picked up on it before this!"

The commander huffed in irritation and said, "Move. I'll take a look." She sat down in the soldier's chair and stared at the screen. Sure enough, there was an object directly above the Society's mountain base, hovering overhead. When Heavy Metal took a look at the monitors, however, there was no sign of anything above them, except for something vaguely golden in color, rapidly approaching the base…

"Incoming foreign object!" she shouted into her communicator, "I repeat, we have an incom--" The villainess never finished, as a gigantic explosion sounded just above her, and knocked her to her feet.

The communicator crackled for a brief moment before Akuma's voice could be heard over the frequency. "Navaros," he said, "Join the others in the hangar and deal with the disturbance while I prepare the sacrifice. We have some uninvited guests that must be disposed of."

"Yes, my lord."

The doctor rose to her feet and shot off through the air on the rockets that came from the bottom of her boots. What could have caused such a powerful explosion? "That golden thing on the screen had been vaguely human-shaped," she thought to herself, "Could that mean anything?"

After flying up through the base, she rocketed into the hangar, where dozens of soldiers lay crumpled on the ground, unconscious, their weapons broken up or melted. Standing in the midst of all the soldiers were eight children, five boys and three girls. One boy, who's skin was gold and purple in hue, was floating around in the air in the form of a gaseous cloud, while another boy next to him was flying gracefully through the air on platforms made of wind. A third boy had massive hands, easily the size of fishing nets, and he was using these hands to gather the soldiers and put them in a heap. Two other boys, one with a baseball hat, the other wearing a…watermelon, were checking the soldiers, making sure they were still alive. The girls, meanwhile, were following the boys: one with short, blonde hair was balling up the guns and tossing them to the other side of the hangar; a younger girl with fiery-red hair was melting many of the guns, and punching several of the unconscious soldiers; the final girl, taller than the others, was standing in the center of the group, and focusing on several of the soldiers, who then floated through the air and joined the pile.

"Y'know, Sockhead," the boy with massive hands said, "having my muscles frozen was pretty freakin' uncomfortable!"

The boy flying on the wind platforms replied, "If you could learn patience, Eddy, I wouldn't have needed to do that."

Heavy Metal could not take any more of their chatter. "What are you children doing in here?!" she shouted, as her teammates joined her in the hangar.

"Oh, crap," the one with the baseball cap exclaimed when the other Society members made their way out.

"Wait!" Edd shouted, "Who are those two others?!"

The other kids looked at the Society of Sin and, sure enough, there were two others gathered. One stood to the left of the group, and was holding a massive machine gun. He wore a black and blue suit of body armor that covered his entire body, and he wore gloves of the same design. Red goggles adorned his face, and they did not reveal the eyes underneath, like the mask covered his face. This was Predator, a hired out assassin from the Iron Gauntlet.

The other member, who was crouched in front of the Society, was Bonecrusher, a sick, twisted monstrosity that was once a man. It had thin, wiry, white hair that fell to its knotted shoulders, and pale, ashen skin that was the same color as ashes from a fire. All over its body were spiky protrusions that were granite-colored, and were as sharp as butcher knives. A spike-riddled tail swished around on the ground behind it, and its long, forked tongue slid out of its mouth and licked the area around its mouth, which was devoid of lips.

Bonecrusher hissed as it eyeballed the super-children in hunger, "Whhooooooo do we eatssssss firrrrrrrrrrrrsssssssstttttttt?"

"You will not eat them yet, Bonecrusher," Obelisk said as he rapped the monster across the head with a metal baton. "You may eat them when I have finished tearing them limb from limb!"

"Split up!" Dr. Navaros shouted, and all the villains separated and moved to attack the children. Energia flew through the air at Ed, who dodged out of her path and then pursued her in the form of a laser. Kevin was immediately attacked by Puma Loco, who was literally running circles around the boy. Rampage charged at Sarah, but was blown away by Nazz, who slammed into his ribcage. As he flipped through the air, Obelisk hurled a metal razor at Edd, only for Johnny to bounce it away with his metal baton; Johnny then jumped into the air and kicked the oncoming enemy in the chest.

Sarah spotted Spektros amidst all the chaos and cried out, "YOU!" and burst across the room in a mad dash attack.

"Bonekrusher will eatssssss you firsssssssssttttt, rubbr boi!" The ferocious beast charged through the hangar at Eddy, who wrapped his arms into a giant baseball bat at least ten feet long and swatted at the menace.

"Back off, ugly!"

The only ones left were May and Edd. "May!" Edd shouted, "I'll take on the woman in the armor; you handle the man with the gun!"

"What?!" It was too late to argue, for Edd had already flown into the air to combat. May was forced to swallow her fear as Predator jumped down from the balcony and immediately opened fire. "Please be able to stop bullets!" she screamed in her head as the deadly shots drew ever closer.

***

Ed and Energia, in their pure energy forms, rocketed out of the base and began to hover in mid-air, neither of them making a move. As one waited for the other to make a move, Ed's eye began to twitch. He then shouted, "You shall pay for what you did to Peach Creek, nemesis!"

The energy-composed girl giggled hysterically. "Monsieur, I did not mean any harm to your little town! I am only doing this for fun, oui? It is merely a joke."

"Silence, nemesis! You shall not escape the wrath of Elemento this time!"

"Oh, monsieur, please call me 'Energia'!" She then shot straight through the air and passed right through Ed's chest. The large boy howled in pain, but quickly recovered; he let off a salvo of red energy, to counter Energia. His attacks were countered by blue lightning that she hurled from her hands.

The two of them flew around the base endlessly, blasting light at each other, although only Energia was enjoying herself. "This is the first time I have ever encountered someone like you, monsieur!" she shrieked as she recovered from one Ed's laser blasts. "I shall most enjoy tearing you apart!"

"Not if Elemento has anything to say about it!" Ed converted his hands into balls of lightning and shot them at the enemy, shouting, "TRY SOME REAL LIGHTNING!" The electrical energy shot right at Energia, but she only laughed as it formed a circle around her.

"Monsieur, you should know that I AM electrical energy; it will take something else to stop me!" With that, she hurled Ed's lightning right back at him, only for it to be negated by the rubber pole that he turned his body into.

Ed shifted back to his original form and shook his head. "Tingly…" he mumbled, before charging at Energia with a fistful of red energy.

***

While Ed and Energia fought down below, Edd and Heavy Metal were engaging in combat directly above them. The nefarious Dr. Navaros was firing round after round of attacks, but nothing struck her opponent, who deflected each shot fired at him. After having a laser blast stopped by a bolt of lightning, the doctor grunted in frustration.

"Stop blocking my attacks, you chauvinistic pig!" she shouted as she fired off a plasma beam.

"I'd rather not, madam," the hat-wearing boy replied as he avoided the beam, "There's a friend of mine in your base, and I've got to get him out!"

Navaros sneered. "You will not find him. By now, Lord Akuma will have begun the sacrifice; you are too late!"

"That's a lie!" Edd formed a swiftly-spinning ball of wind around his body, and he charged straight at his enemy, only for her to blast him away with a mini-bomb that was released from her shoulder. He screamed in agony, "AAAAAIIIEEEEEEOOOOOO!" and fell almost a hundred feet through the air before righting himself.

Heavy Metal rocketed down to his level and held another mini-bomb at ready. "You see? I have many tricks up my sleeves. Give it up, boy; you have no chance of beating me."

"Th-Th-That may be," he coughed heavily, "But…I will stop Akuma. One way or the other, I'll put an end to his carnage!"

"Fool! You won't even reach Lord Akuma, much less DEFEAT him!" Her cannon was then aimed at Edd, but before she could fire a blast, she was hit in the face by a fist that appeared from thin air.

The fist retracted, but Edd could hear a slightly nasal voice cry out, "Don't you DARE hit my pumpkin!"

"That…that voice! It can't…be!"

***

WHAM! Bonecrusher hit the opposite wall of the hangar before falling back to the ground. It shook its head slightly and growled, "Rrrrrrrr, rubbr boi hitsssssss Bonekrushr nnnnnnoooooooowwwwwwww rubbr boi dy!"

"Not today, I ain't!" Eddy put his thumb to his mouth and pretended to blow into his thumb, all the while making his hand even bigger than before. Finally, when it reached the size of a small weather balloon, the rubber boy smirked and said, "Come get some."

"RRRRRRRAAAARRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH!" Bonecrusher shot across the hangar immediately, and was right beside Eddy in an instant. The boy punched Bonecrusher in the face, but was also hurt on one of the spikes on its head.

Eddy grabbed his hand and howled in pain. "Frick, man! What's that thing on your head?!"

"Spikkkkkkkeeeeezzzzzzzzz," the monster grumbled as it got back up, "And now, Bonecrusher show you just why he am menace!"

"…That is one heavy accent you got there, buddy…"

This time, Bonecrusher did not reply, it only attacked. It charged straight at Eddy, who was blown back by its monster strength. The assault did not end there, as Bonecrusher grabbed an oil drum from the hangar and hurled it at Eddy, who caught it and bounced it back to the monster. It crashed against its head, but did nothing to stop the creature from slicing it into pieces.

"Killlllll youuuuuuuuuuuu……"

"Crap!" Eddy thought to himself, "There's gotta be some way to take this guy out!" Then, he spotted a pile of I-beams nearby, and an idea formed in his head as he ran over to the pile of steel.

***

"OOF!" Rampage could feel the air leave his lungs when Nazz caught him in the side with a flying tackle. The lizard man quickly recovered from the attack, however, and was grappling with Nazz in mid-air. "I don't know how you can fly, kiddo, but I know that you and your friends are gonna be Bonecrusher's dinner by the time I'm done with you!" he shouted as he punched her in the face.

The girl was unfazed by his taunts, and merely said, "Dude, you are so gonna get your butt kicked if you keep talking crap about me and my friends like that!"

"Oh yeah? And what're you gonna do about it?" CLAAAAAAAANG! To answer his question, Nazz wrapped her arms around his legs and then whapped him against the metal wall of the hangar. This seemed to affect him, so she continued to do it as she vented her anger.

WHAM! "That's for Lee!"

WHAM! "That's for Jimmy!"

WHAM! "That's for Rolf!"

She then cocked her fist and said, "And this is for the rest of Peach Creek!" THOOM! Her punch was clear and true, and made Rampage go flying clear across the hangar, but it wasn't enough to stop the beast.

Scott got off the ground, brushed off his skin, and pulled a cigarette from one of the pockets in his pants. He lit it with a lighter that came from another pocket, and then asked Nazz, "Is that the best you got, girly? 'Cause if it is, this ain't gonna last much longer."

"Don't mock me!" the super-powered girl screamed as she shot off at the lizard man, her eyes filled with red-hot energy and her fist filled with power. Before she could get in the shot, however, Rampage punched her square in the face; he didn't even blink. Nazz got up, and realized that she was bleeding; she, who was supposed to be unbreakable, was bleeding.

She glared at Rampage and growled, "Oh, it's soooo on now!"

***

The villain Puma Loco circled around Kevin like a wild animal, waiting to spring out and attack his prey. For once, the baseball hat-wearing boy was at a loss for what to do, and that was when an opening appeared. While he watched Puma run around him, Kevin noticed that the moving things surrounding him began to slow down; it reached the point where everything in the hangar was standing still, save for Puma Loco, who was now moving at a normal speed.

Kevin thought to himself, "I don't know what just happened, but I'm taking this chance to get out of here!" He used this opportunity to make a break for it, and he found that he was running…at a normal speed. "What the heck's going on?!"

"I can tell you that, boy!" Puma Loco was running right beside him, a cruel smile exposed beneath his mask. He said to Kevin, "You are clearly a speedster, and a new one, am I right?"

"How do you know this?"

"I am a speedster myself, and I know all about the mysteries of the power that humans refer to as "speed". Allow me to help you master this power!" He bumped into Kevin, who was thrown back, but rather than being knocked off his feet, he was sent flying into the other wall, with Puma Loco right behind him.

"This! This is pure speed, my friend!" The rival speedster vanished from sight and reappeared before Kevin. "We have the power to change the world, and alter things as we see fit. Now, follow me, and I can help you learn more about your fantastic powers!"

Kevin got off the wall and asked, "Why should I listen to you?"

"Because I have been running since the Golden Age, when I was just as inexperienced as you. I see potential in you, boy, and it would be a shame to see that go to waste."

The fleet-footed boy considered the situation for a moment before asking, "What about Rolf?"

Puma laughed. "Boy, you are able to run faster than light; you will be back in time to save your friend. Now, come!" The villain ran out of the hangar, with Kevin in tow behind him.

***

After deflecting the razor that Obelisk had fired, Johnny swung his baton about him, ready for combat. The hooded man composed himself and growled menacingly, "You do not know what you are doing, fool! This world shall end, and all your friends' efforts will have been for naught!"

"Allow me to offer a rebuttal. As the Masked Stranger used to say: "Destiny is fer yellow-bellies!"" Johnny deftly dodged a slash from the man's dagger, but he felt the agonizing pain of his broken ribs returning to him.

"Then you shall be destroyed!" The hooded man hurled more razors at Johnny, who managed to dodge all but three; the ones that hit their target cut into the boy's skin, and left gashes along his arms. Unfortunately for Obelisk, Captain Melonhead had been in the game for a while, and he would not be defeated by a few paper cuts like these. In retaliation, Johnny, hurled several of his smoke-bomb acorns, which temporarily blinded the supervillain. Obelisk growled in frustration, but after years of training under these circumstances, he adapted immediately by listening in for attacks.

In an instant, the katana that was sheathed at his side was drawn, and successfully blocked the metal staff that Johnny was swinging at his head. Then, just as swiftly, Obelisk delivered a heavy kick in the chest to the boy, which threw him back and made him collapse in agony. But Johnny did not voice the pain, and he pushed himself to block the katana with his staff, which he managed to do expertly.

"How?!" screamed Obelisk, "How are you able to do this?!?"

"I've…I've had practice." The boy smirked and hopped back onto his feet, his trusty ally Plank by his side.

***

"I'll tear you apart for what you did to Jimmy!" Sarah screamed as she threw punch after explosive punch at Spektros, who avoided each and every hit by vanishing at the last second.

"Jimmy…Jimmy…" he mumbled as he continued to dodge the attacks, "Can you give me any hints?"

"YOU KILLED HIM!"

"Sweetheart, I've killed a LOT of people; you're going to have to be more specific."

This just drove Sarah's fury even higher, and she became faster and faster, her strikes getting ever closer to reaching Spektros until…BOOOM! Contact was made. Spektros fell to the ground, his jacket smoldering around him, but he was still laughing.

"Splendid!" he shrieked in happiness, "Most splendid! You actually managed to hit me! Now I suppose I should get serious…" He tore away the jacket to reveal a chainmail shirt covering his torso and shoulders, which was also covered by a black vest. The scientist's body was surprisingly muscular, as every inch of his exposed muscles appeared trim and taught. "Let's step up the game, shall we?" With the press of a button on his wristwatch, the area around them vanished, and they were left floating in a strange area that seemed like the depths of space.

"Wh-Where are we?!" Sarah asked as she charged up explosive energy around her hands.

Spektros smiled wickedly at the girl and said, "My dear, we are in the Ghost Zone! And we are going to fight here until one of us drops! Doesn't this sound like fun to you? And who knows, you might just meet your dearly departed friend here!"

"You monster!" Sarah exploded forward, only to be countered by a blast of green light from Spektros's hands. She flew backwards a good distance, and found that Spektros now had white hair and piercing green eyes.

A green, blazing aura appeared around his body and he howled in laughter. "Now, my little firecracker," he cried out, "give me one hell of a show!"

***

While the others were on (mostly) equal footing with their opponents, May was quickly discovering that she was heavily outclassed here. Every time she stopped a blast from the Predator, he would return with a different, more powerful attack; his amount of ammunition seemed limitless.

"Stop shooting at me!" the girl screamed as she created a telekinetic field around her body.

"Not gonna happen, babe." Predator fired off another round from a high-powered shotgun, which was then followed up by a blast from a plasma rifle, which managed to pierce the area around May, forcing her back.

"Ugh! That hurt, you jerk!"

Her opponent laughed, and she could swear that he was smiling underneath his mask. Predator pulled out a crossbow and fired bolt after bolt and said, "Remember the deal I made with you at the start? If you can get a hit on me, I'll go; if not, you and all your friends are gonna be killed."

"Then I guess I've got no choice but to go all out, huh?" May was acting confident, but she knew that, deep down, she had no chance of actually beating this man. He was just too skilled and powerful. "I've got to catch him off-guard somehow!" She hid herself behind a stack of oil drums, and began to devise a plan, while Predator hid nearby and began to plot his next move.

***

"It can't…be!" Edd stared in shock of the young woman that stepped out into the open air, held up by a platform made of pure crystal. This girl was wearing a torn, black tank-top and green cargo pants, and had blue hair that was fluttering in the breeze. An arrogant smirk and a bracelet of crystal wrapped around her wrist only sealed the conclusion. "Marie?! But…you were…how?!"

"Hey pumpkin!" Marie flew over to Edd on the crystal and helped him onto the platform. "So, what's up? Oh yeah, you're probably wondering why I'm here."

"A little bit, yes!"

"Well, I woke up a little while ago. That foreign kid, Rolf? His parents filled me in and told me what was going on. So I said I wanted to go where you guys were, and help out, and boom! Here I am!"

Edd asked, "How did you get here, and how are you making this crystal?"

"It's all this thing!" Marie said as she held the bracelet in front of the boy's face, "I woke up and it was stuck on my wrist! When I said I wanted to see you guys, it made this hole, and I went in—"

"—You went into…a hole?"

"Let me finish, darling! Anyway, I went into this weird tunnel, and I just heard this voice in my head that said, "Marie Kanker, you are the new holder of the Dream Stone; it is your duty to wield it for justice!" or some schlock like that. The voice said that it could do anything I wanted, so I said, "Get me to Berzerkystan, now!" And here I am!"

By this point, Dr. Navaros had recovered from being hit, and shouted, "You…hit me?! And you're protecting a MAN?!?"

"Hey! This is my husband; you ain't gonna lay a finger on him!"

"HUSBAND?!?"

Marie turned to Edd and whispered into his ear, "Listen, I'll hold her off. You go get Rolf outta here so we can head home!"

Edd nodded his head and then shivered. "Marie, for the love of God, now is NOT the time to stick your tongue in my ear!"

"Sorry, force of habit. Now go!" She threw Edd off the platform and he flew away, a tornado formed around his waist.

Navaros rocketed after Edd. "I won't let you escape!" she shouted, but her path was blocked by a wall of crystal. The doctor turned back to Marie and scowled. "Why are you protecting him?!"

The crystal-wielding girl ignored the question. "Right now, I'm just buyin' my sweetheart some time, but I've also got some questions for you. You seem like you're soft for ladies, am I right?"

"What are you getting at?"

"My sister was KILLED in the bombing, you tramp! She's gone, and there's no way to bring her back!"

Navaros visually recoiled in horror. "We-We-Well, what can I do?"

"Give me information on how to make a new body for her."

"I'm sorry?"

"My boyfriend over there is a fraggin' genius, and if he knew how to, he would build a robot body for my sister. But he doesn't, so I'm asking you nicely: will you help me out?"

From her position in the air, the doctor considered the predicament for a moment. Does she help her enemy, or does she eliminate them right now? Decisions, decisions…

After thinking for a moment, Navaros popped open a small computer on her arm band. "All right," she said, "I'll send him the information on one condition."

"Name it."

"I want to see this girl in action in the future. I want to be able to fight against her in battle. Can you promise me that?"

"Knowing my sister, I wouldn't have to tell her to do it; she'd fight you anyway!"

After giving Navaros the email address for Edd, the doctor submitted a file that would be able to tell him how to construct a body for Lee. The two women then floated there in the air, unsure of what to do next. "Sooooooo…what now?" Marie asked.

"Hmm…" Navaros pondered this for a moment before saying, "Wanna test out that arm band?"

Marie smirked and held the crystal bracelet in her free hand. "Oh, hell yeah."

***

After escaping from Heavy Metal, Edd flew down into the mountain base that belonged to the Society of Sin, and tried to find Rolf's location, which proved to be quite the daunting task. "How can a fortress have so many rooms?!" Edd asked himself as he stopped to catch his breath. Suddenly, he felt a quaking beneath his feet, and the boy decided to follow the source of the quaking in the hopes that it would bring him to Rolf.

He traced the source of the tremors to a pair of giant golden doors. "Might as well have a neon sign outside that says, "EVIL LAIR WITHIN!"." The boy blew open the giant doors with a massive gust of wind, and stepped cautiously as he wandered into the room.

It was huge, easily able to fit a full-grown tree within, and very empty. The only things that were in the room were a throne and a bonfire, which was slowly dying. As Edd passed by the throne, he realized that it was composed of various bones from dead human beings. The boy had to repress the urge to vomit on the spot, and he ventured onward, flying now, since the quakes had grown powerful enough to knock a man to his feet.

Edd located another set of doors on the other side of the room, and heard maniacal laughter from within. "It appears that I've found the place!" he exclaimed before forcing the doors open with a blast of wind. He burst into the room and shouted, "Unhand Rolf, you vile fiend!"

Akuma, who was still in his armor, stood in the center of a hexagonal room that was filled with stone pillars, on an iron platform that was covered with blood. Rolf was on this platform, chained down to the floor, and his body was scarred from the scorching flames that Akuma was producing.

"You!" the fire lord shouted, "How dare you disturb the sacred ritual!"

"Forget about your ritual, I'm here for my friend and one other thing!"

"What's that, pray tell?"

KRA-KOOOOOOOM! "An overdose of payback!" Edd fired a massive lightning bolt from the tips of his fingers, which connected with Akuma's armor and sent him flying into the other side of the room. The boy hurled a ball of lightning at the lord next, but he was able to block this attack with his armored gloves.

He growled and bared save, wolf-like fangs. "That was a very, very bad mistake. You shall pay dearly for your insolence!" Akuma leapt into the air and filled his hands with fire. He then charged at Edd as fast as he could.

"And you're going to pay for Peach Creek!" Edd formed a blade of lightning in his hands and rocketed towards Akuma, clashing with him in the center of the room. Their energies exploded against each other, and Akuma was sent back into the wall again, while Edd protected himself with a shield made of intense winds. When he saw that Akuma wasn't getting up, Edd flew down to help free Rolf.

He touched down on the platform and chilled the air around the chains, so that they froze and could be broken apart. The hat-wearing boy looked down at Rolf and asked, "Rolf, are you okay?"

"Double…Double D Ed boy," he gasped out, "Rolf had no…idea that…that you were so powerful. The son of a shepherd wishes he had that kind of power…"

"You shall not live to find out!"

Edd was knocked away from Rolf by Akuma, who slammed the boy into the cavern wall as hard as he could, though the blow was softened by a small cushion of air. "I am going to incinerate you, and then this boy shall serve as sacrifice for the great Demon King!" The Lord of Flames held a fireball up to Edd's face and snarled savagely.

Rolf, meanwhile, felt a strange rush in his body. He felt like he had to do something, like he should save Edd, but how? What did he have that could save his friend? As if to answer his question, a deep, guttural growl rumbled forth from his throat, and the coarse hair on his body grew longer and thicker as the boy grew bigger and larger…

"You…won't…win!" Edd gagged as the air was sucked from his lungs by the intense heat.

"Insolent fool! The arrival of the Demon King shall be any moment! No one can save you now!"

"I beg to differ!"

Akuma released Edd and dodged out of the way of a massive set of claws that slashed through the air where he had just been. Those claws led to a furry arm, which led to a very furry and very, very enraged beast. This new monster was easily over eight feet tall, and was covered from head to toe in navy-colored fur, with yellow eyes looking out from the head. Physically, it resembled a mix between a bear and a wolf, but it spoke with a human voice as it said, "Today, you die, Akuma!"

Edd stared nervously at the beast and asked hesitantly, "Ro-Rolf, is that you?"

"Yes, Double D Ed boy, it is Rolf. Now, attack!" Rolf surged forward, and slammed his shoulder into Akuma's armor, leaving the tyrant winded and out of breath. He did not have time to recover, as Edd launched a miniature typhoon at the villain, sending him hurtling into the air until he crashed into the platform.

Akuma rose slowly, and Rolf crashed into him again, but this time, his monster strength was not enough to take down the fire lord, who tackled the were-beast to the floor and pinned him down with all his might. Before Edd could reach the platform, a dome of flames encircled them, leaving him stranded on the outside.

"Damnation!" the boy cried, "It's already begun!"

"YES!" Akuma howled as a wicked grin crossed his face, "ARISE, GREAT DEMON KING! REVEAL YOURSELF TO THESE HUMANS, AND ACCEPT THIS SACRIFICE OF THE CHILD OF THE HERO!"

From a portal of fire that erupted onto the platform, an awkward voice with a Brooklyn accent could be heard. "Oy, oy, what's with all the yelling? Don't you stooges know what time it is?!" From the portal came a man dressed in a red suit, wielding a diamond-studded cane and a wide-brimmed hat. This man had green, scaly skin and pointed ears, along with black, soulless eyes. He asked again, "Which one a' you mugs was tryin' ta call me?"

"I, Lord Akuma of the Society of Sin!" Akuma fell to the floor in a bow. "Great Demon King, I have brought you here to sacrifice the successor of the ancient hero!" The man walked over to Rolf and looked into his feral eyes before scowling.

"Ah, 'fraid you're mistaken there: this schmuck ain't the kid I'm lookin' for!"

Akuma raised his head in shock. "Wh…What?"

"You damn fool! This kid ain't the one I need! He's not Luto's descendant; he's just a cousin!" The demon king smacked Akuma in the head with his cane, which knocked the man out. "Think Im'ma have to teach you a lesson, Akuma."

The king then looked at Edd and Rolf and said, "Sorry, 'bout this, kids. Be outta here in a jiff." Neither of the two could really reply, since they were positively stunned by the outcome. Was the demon king actually HELPING them?!

He, the demon king, walked back into the portal he had made, dragging Akuma's unconscious body behind him. Before he left, he asked, "Anything you kids want?"

Edd finally found his voice and took a deep breath before asking, "Umm…one…one more shot at him, please?"

"Can do," the king said as he stepped away from the body. "He's all yours!"

Edd stepped forward slowly, and then charged his hand with lightning. "This," he whispered under his breath, "is for all of Peach Creek!" KRA-KOOOOOOOOOMMM! The bolt struck true, and fried the man in his armor, leaving him singed, but still alive.

The demon king laughed hysterically. "HAHAHAHAHA! Ouch! That had to HURT!"

Rolf got up off the floor and also delivered a final attack on the fallen lord by pounding his chest with his mighty arms. He did not stop pounding until the demon pushed him back with the cane. The cane was waggled in front of his face, as if to reprimand him, and the demon king was on the other end, his face showing mock pity for Akuma.

"C'mon, pals, ain't he had enough? He was just beaten by a couple-a squirts like you!" The demon king crossed through the barrier between Earth and the mystical realm and offered one last parting of advice to the boys. "Remember kids: never mix the red pill with the blue pills; it will really mess with your head!" And just like that, he vanished into flames, dragging Akuma's scarred body with him.

Rolf and Edd stood there on the sacrificial alter as the flames died down around them, and they looked back and forth between each other. In time, Rolf's animal form shrank, and he found himself back in his regular, human body. He stared at his hands for a time and then asked Edd, "Double D Ed boy?"

"Yes, Rolf?"

"What, er, what just happened?"

Edd sighed. "I don't even know either. Let's just call it a victory and get back to the others."

"The other children are here?"

"Yes, and right now, I think they need our help."

"Then tally forth!"

***

_THE END…OF THIS STORY. Seriously, did you really think I was ending it like that? To hell with that; this story is far from over! Where is Jimmy? What will be the outcome of the children's fights?? Why was this chapter so much longer than the others??? Find out next time when there are even more questions asked and less answers given in _ED JUSTICE!!!


	9. Ch 9: Things that Go ED in the Night

**With apologies to the late, great Douglas Adams for (attempting to) ape his style in this introduction**

**Chapter 9: Things that Go 'ED' in the Night**

_In our world, beyond the realm of human imagination, there exists a bizarre and fascinating dimension filled with bizarre and fascinating creatures that are not unlike the monsters and spirits of campfire stories and sordid tales. This strange place lacks any sun or moon, for it is not a planet. There are no continents, but rather, there are numerous floating islands. Countless doors fill the hazy, green sky; these can lead to anywhere at any time in history. The denizens of this world will tell you that being there is a lot more fun and exciting than being on Earth, and generally, they would be right, for humans lead such dreary and boring lives._

_This dimension of floating doors and green skies is inaccessible by ordinary means. It takes the average human about 80-90 years to arrive there. By now, it should be made very clear that this is not some pocket reality or parallel world. It is a perplexing, reality-bending universe known as the Ghost Zone, and its connection to the events that transpired earlier in this story will be made clear very soon. At the moment, however, this story will not focus on any of the characters from the previous chapter or their battles against each other. Instead, the focus shifts to a girl who is sitting in a wrecked tour bus._

_She, the girl, has long, azure hair that is composed of fire-like plasma which she can control at her beck and whim. This girl was wearing a black tank-top that did not cover her right shoulder (nor did it cover most of her pale chest), a pair of tight black pants that were meant to emphasize her petite derriere, and metal boots that had skull designs at the toe. Her flaming hair was pulled back into a ponytail, like usual, though some was left to hang down in her face. There were black tattoos under her eyes that were left from when she died roughly twenty years ago. A purple guitar was slung around her shoulder and she was playing it deftly. Let's call her "Ember"_

_Ember was seated in her tour bus since she had nothing better to do. Her bandmates had been gone for hours, having left to find new parts for the bus. Having no one to jam with, Ember wiled the time away by playing on her guitar. As she strummed away on a new tune that was meant to be slow yet powerful, she noticed something coming from the distance. It appeared to be a white, shining light._

"_What the heck is that?" she asked to no one in particular. The light was traveling at a rapid rate, and Ember realized that the light was devouring everything in its path, from floating islands to the occasional passing ghost. Nothing could stop it. When the light neared her tour bus, Ember screamed, "Oh, sprock!" and flew off on her guitar in an attempt to outrun the light. She rocketed through the green sky on her instrument, but it was not fast enough to escape the light. Ember vanished in the blink of an eye, never to be seen again._

_This story is not about her, however. Instead, this story focuses on the events that led up to the destruction of the Ghost Zone and its inhabitants. It is the story of how one bad man fought two boys and managed to do an incredibly bad thing. And like all stories, there is a main character. _

_In this case, the main character is a small boy. _

***

The boy was lying on top of a floating rock not unlike an asteroid, his long hair matted against his face. He was unconscious, but still breathing even though mere hours ago, he had been incinerated by a beam of green light. This child was Jimmy Fenton, and he was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

At the time of his death, Jimmy had been ten years of age, or would be in November. A tragic accident two years ago had forced him to have a giant metal retainer attached to his teeth; he had not yet gotten his revenge on Eddy O'Brian for that. He was wearing a green, more on the teal side, sweater and a pair of white pants that were rather effeminate. Black and white sneakers had been wrapped around his feet. In his pockets were eleven cents in change and an action figure of his favorite hero, Inviso-Bill. Of course, that was at the time of his death.

Now Jimmy was practically a completely different person. His platinum-blonde hair had become pitch-black and was no longer curly. The sweater of debatable color was no longer in existence; in its place was a golden shirt that had white pads on the shoulders and elbows. His pants had changed as well, becoming golden in hue with white stripes running up the sides of the legs. The shoes on his feet were now boots that were very vibrant dandelion tone. The money was no longer in his pockets (although this was due to his no longer having any pockets to hold stuff in) and the action figure was gone. Every fragment of his human life was gone.

Jimmy began to stir from his pleasant slumber. He pushed himself off the ground, mumbling something about how hard his bed felt today. Using his gloved hands, he brushed his black hair away from his face.

"That's odd," he whispered as he grabbed a lock of hair. "What happened to my hair? What happened to my hands?? What happened to my naturally curly hair?!?"

Jimmy started to scream at the top of his lungs, lamenting the loss of his naturally curly and bright hair; this screaming attracted the attention of a particularly nasty ghoul who happened to live in that general vicinity and was cranky at that time. He had not been able to acquire any dinner the night before, and he was feeling starved. The ghoul, shaped roughly like that of a minotaur, was composed of green ectoplasmic energy, save for the glowing red eyes that were set in its face.

The ghoul crawled out from its hiding spot on the rock and lunged at Jimmy, who shrieked in terror and dove out of the way of the attack. Unfortunately, the ghoul was faster than the small boy, and he grabbed Jimmy's foot before he could get very far.

"Don't eat me!" Jimmy screamed. "I'd taste horrible!"

"S'okay," the ghoul hissed through green teeth, "I'm in the mood for something yucky anyways!"

The black-haired boy's eyes grew exceedingly large at that moment and he screamed as loud as he could. "Somebody HEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPP!"

Suddenly, a bolt of green flames burst through the cool air and struck the ghoul in the back, making him drop Jimmy onto the ground. He turned to look up at his savior and found it to be none other than his hero, Inviso-Bill, who hovered in the air with a green flame in his palms.

"When are you gonna learn, Taurus? You can't just eat random ghosts and expect to get away with it!"

"Mind your own business, Phantom! This ain't got nothin' to do with you!"

"Protecting the innocent is what I do. Leave him alone."

"Make me."

Inviso-Bill smirked; those were the words he had been waiting for. He dropped out of the air and let out the fire in his hands, sending it straight for Taurus's body. The emerald flames collided with the ghoul and knocked him through the air.

"Go, Inviso-Bill!" Jimmy shouted.

"Actually, kid, it's Danny Phantom," said the ghost boy as he shot past Jimmy and landed a haymaker in the face of the fiendish ghoul, "My name is Danny Phantom!" He continued to batter the fiend until the beast lay unconscious upon the fragment of rock. His opponent stood over his body victorious.

Danny turned back to Jimmy and took his hand. "Are you okay?" he asked. Jimmy nodded, too in awe to respond. "I don't think you're from around here. Are you lost?"

Jimmy looked around for the first time, as if just realizing he was not in Peach Creek. "Oh my goodness!" he shrieked. "Where the heck am I?!" The small boy began to run around the floating rock with his hands gripping his unnaturally-black hair. As he ran, he began to pick up off the ground. This only further served to terrify him.

"I'm not at home, I've almost been eaten, I'm floating in the air, and my hair is blaaaaaaack!"

Danny flew over to the boy and patted him on the shoulder. He was not entirely sure why this ghost was freaking out, though he had a few guesses. When he tried to ask the boy what was wrong, he did not get a response, so he spun the boy around to face him. "Kid," he said, "you're in the Ghost Zone, a place where spirits go when they pass away. I…I think you're dead."

"I'm…dead?"

"Yeah, it's really the only reason you could be here."

"But why is my hair different? And, come to think of it, where are my clothes?"

"Things change when someone enters the Zone. A part of you awakens that replaces your physical body." Before he continued, a blue mist emitted from his mouth. Danny looked around and began to shiver. "It's not safe to stay here. We have to go." He hoisted one of Taurus's arms over his shoulders, and he lifted up off the ground.

"Where?" asked Jimmy.

"I'm taking you to meet a friend. Come on!"

Danny took hold of the boy's hand and flew off with Jimmy in tow. As they flew up into the green sky, Jimmy looked back and saw that there were disgusting creatures swarming the rock. Each of the creatures was no bigger than a bowling ball, and they were shaped like a piranha. They were coming after the defeated ghoul's body, which was no longer there.

"Don't look back," Danny told him. "Things are going to be pretty nasty."

The unnaturally-black-haired boy turned his head away just as the first of the creatures began to reach the point where they had just been. Even as they flew out of sight of the rock, the sounds of the creatures' howling reached his ears.

***

"Let's step up the game, shall we?" With the press of a button on his wristwatch, the area around them vanished, and they were left floating in a strange area that seemed like the depths of space.

"Wh-Where are we?!" Sarah asked as she charged up explosive energy around her hands.

Spektros smiled wickedly at the girl and said, "My dear, we are in the Ghost Zone! And we are going to fight here until one of us drops! Doesn't this sound like fun to you? And who knows, you might just meet your dearly departed friend here!"

"You monster!" Sarah exploded forward, only to be countered by a blast of green light from Spektros's hands. She flew backwards a good distance, and found that Spektros now had white hair and piercing green eyes.

A green, blazing aura appeared around his body and he howled in laughter. "Now, my little firecracker," he cried out, "give me one hell of a show!"

Sarah punched at the wicked doctor, but he caught her smaller fist and threw her to the side. She slid along the invisible platform they stood on until she reached the edge. With her mighty strength, Sarah slammed her hands down into the platform to stop herself from going over.

"Oh, I'm afraid that won't do at all!" Spektros exclaimed. "We can't make things too easy for our brash heroine! Why don't we take away the platform?" He pressed another button on his wristwatch and the platform that Sarah was clinging too vanished. She began to fall through the starry sky. "If you want to fight me, you'll have to do better than this!"

The little girl growled. Right now, she wanted revenge. She wanted payback and restitution for Jimmy's death, and she would receive it, no matter what. Her eyes glowed orange as they did when she ambushed Johnny; the fire within her was stirring once again. A burst of flames erupted from her feet, melting her shoes, slowing her descent. Sarah did not marvel at how she was now hovering. Time for that later; it was time to kick some butt now.

She screamed, "Eat this!" and shot a fireball from her hands. The ball connected with Spektros, who was actually flung back by the force of the blast.

"Well done, but can you handle your own medicine?"

The doctor formed a green fireball in his hands and shot it out as a powerful stream of emerald fury. Sarah blocked it with her arms and managed to take most of the damage away from her body, though her arms were burnt. This only served to make her angrier, and she launched a counterattack. She shot through the air and struck a fist at Spektros, who moved to catch it again.

"You'll get nowhere if you keep doing this," he said as he held Sarah's fist in his hand.

The explosive girl smirked. "Who said that was my attack?" Her hand glowed with energy and then exploded, sending the two combatants flying through the air. Sarah recovered first and rocketed towards Spektros. "I'm not finished!" she shrieked. She began to punch his body over and over, repeatedly; the doctor did not even defend against her barrage.

At last, when the doctor was not moving anymore, Sarah stopped punching and kicking him. She stopped to take a look at the man's body. Was he alive? She did not care. All that mattered was finding Jimmy. Spektros said that he might still be alive, so she decided she would start looking for him. Sarah brushed back some hair that had gotten in her face and began to fly away.

Suddenly, a green flame hit her in the back. She howled in pain and spun around to find that Spektros was no longer floating in the air. There was a buzzing sound behind her ear, and, before she could react, Spektros had her in his clutches. His grip around her arms tightened to the point of agony.

He clicked his tongue in incredulity. "Tsk-tsk! Dear, were you going to leave? We are just beginning, however!"

***

After flying through the hazy skies of the Ghost Zone, Jimmy and Danny came upon a building that was like a mix between a diner and a castle. It floated atop a jagged rock and oozed power, majesty, and cheap eats. The building was small, but it still had a door that was made to resemble a drawbridge, stone walls, and pointed towers at all four corners. Spelled out in bold letters was the name of the restaurant: "Dairy King".

"Why are we at a diner, Danny?"

"'Cause, kid, we need to sit down and have a talk so that I can explain some things to you. Plus, we need to get Taurus out of here."

"Why are we taking care of him? He tried to eat me!"

"Taurus isn't evil; he's just fallen on hard times, like a lot of the ghosts here. Knock on the door, would ya? Thanks."

The two boys floated there for a time before there came a response. "Who's there?" asked a kindly voice.

"Two and a half percent milk," said Danny.

The door creaked open and standing in the doorway had to be the jolliest man Jimmy had ever seen. This man was fairly short and squat and he had a thick mass of gray hair atop his head. He was dressed like a king, but his regal garment seemed very snug on his well-rounded form. In his hands was a golden scepter that had a head the shape of a wedge of cheese. Like Taurus, his skin was green.

"Danny-Boy!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Come on in! And make sure the critters don't get ya, eh!"

He floated aside, allowing Danny and Jimmy to pass. When he floated inside, Jimmy saw just what kind of place it was: it was a bar, though there was nothing but milk and milk-based drinks. Some ghosts littered the bar, eating cheese or yogurt. Danny wandered over to a booth with Taurus and set the ghoul down on the seat. He turned to the kindly king and smiled warmly.

"When he wakes up, get him some warm milk and a cheese salad." The king nodded and got to work fixing up a meal for the new arrival to his restaurant. Danny and Jimmy made their way to the bar and they sat down on a pair of red stools. While Jimmy was looking around in wonder, Danny asked, "Can we get some service, please?"

"Be with you in a sec, deary!" cried an old woman's voice. After another minute, a large, old lady appeared from under the bar, a pitcher of milk in hand. She was wearing a pink and white striped shirt and a matching skirt, with an apron covering her front. Her white hair was held back in a net atop her head and she had thick, yellow gloves on her hands. She was not unlike a cafeteria lady.

"What can I get for you, Danny?"

"I'll have a peanut butter milkshake, and he'll have," Danny paused. "What do you want to get?"

Jimmy stared at the bevy of dairy products before him. "Um, I…I guess I'll have what he's having."

"Would you like a cookie?" asked the old ghost.

"Yes, please."

She winked. "Be back in a moment, dearies."

As she went under the bar again, Danny turned to Jimmy and began to talk to him. "So, what's your story, kid?"

"My "story"?"

"Yeah, what's your name, how'd you die? That sort of thing, y'know?"

"Well, my name's Jimmy Fenton, and I-"

"Hold on. Jimmy?"

"Yes, what's it to you?"

Danny was shocked. "It's me, your cousin Danny!" To prove this, he summoned up two blue rings that ran up and down his body, revealing a black-haired youth wearing quite ordinary clothes. His blue eyes immediately gave him away.

"Danny? I can't believe it! My cousin's a superhero!" Jimmy lunged forward and clung to Danny's shirt, tears streaming down his face. The little boy was so happy that he had found someone familiar in this new world, he forgot that there was a milkshake waiting for him on the bar.

After a minute of letting Jimmy cry, Danny pulled the boy off of him. "Here," he said, "have a milkshake and tell me why you're here."

"Well, th-the last thing I remember is…I was playing with my friend, Sarah, when I spilled some paint on my favorite pants, so I ran back to my house to change. After that, I lost track of time, but then things started getting shaky; it was like a huge earthquake! So I hid under my bed, but then I remembered that Sarah was outside an- Oh no! SARAH!"

The milkshake fell from Jimmy's hands and spilled all over the floor of the diner, but he did not notice. He was immediately flying out the door of the diner as fast as his ghost body could go. He shouted Sarah's name over and over again, as if it might help, but it was not. Danny ran out after him, after helping to clean up the drink and changing into his ghost form, and raced after Jimmy's swiftly retreating form.

"Jimmy, listen to me!" he shouted, "Sarah's not here! You're not on Earth!" Jimmy was not listening, so Danny sped up and zoomed in front of his cousin. He grabbed the boy by the shoulders and shook him. "She is not here. This is not Earth."

"Where am I?!" Jimmy sobbed.

"This is the afterlife, Jimmy. People go here when they die. Everyone that has ever lived is in here, somewhere. If your friend were here, I would know; that's my job to help new spirits."

"Wh-What?"

"Yeah, that's what I do. It used to be that I would fight these guys, but ever since the Wild Beasts appeared, we've all had to work together to survive." Danny gestured back to the diner. "That's just one of our safe zones. It's got a special hex on it that prevents the enemy from showing up."

"What's a "Wild Beast"?"

"You remember those fish things that came after Taurus? That's a Wild Beast. Someone's been controlling them, and I think I've got a good idea of who."

"Who is it?"

"An old enemy by the name of Vlad Plasmius." Danny ran a hand through his hair. He was rather tired, and he did not feel like having to explain the current situation to its fullest extent to his cousin, who shouldn't even be dead.

_The problem is Plasmius died three months ago after Pariah Dark broke free from his sleep…_

Jimmy's head swiveled left and right. "Did you say something, Danny?" he asked. He could have sworn it was Danny's voice that he heard.

"No." _Poor kid. Can't believe something like this happened on my watch! I should have been able to help him or something._

"It's not your fault," said Jimmy. He put a consoling hand on Danny's shoulder.

"Wait, how did you know I felt guilty about this? Did…did you just read my mind?"

There was a moment of silence between the two cousins before Danny said, "Tell me what I'm thinking of right now."

Jimmy hesitated for a second before he heard the voice again. _That trip to the lake is going to be great. The best part is that Sam will be trying out her new swimsuit; she said it would be a two-piece this time. Maybe if I pay Tucker, he'll give me some alone time…_

"Eww, Danny! Cut it out!" Jimmy shoved his cousin away, who was laughing hysterically. "What's so funny?!"

"I think we just discovered your power!"

"My "power"?"

"When a spirit enters the Ghost Zone, it automatically changes so that the spirit will have some degree of self-defense. In my case, I developed a plethora of ghostly powers. In the case of the Dairy King, he was able to create dairy products from thin air."

"So I'm a psychic? That's so cool!"

Danny gestured back to the diner. "Come on: let's go have a milkshake, and then we'll try out your powers, okay?"

"Sure thing!"

***

Three and a half peanut butter and chocolate milkshakes later, Danny and Jimmy were in an area that was far removed from the rest of the Ghost Zone. They were in an abyss-like place that lacked the hazy green clouds of before; here, there were billions of stars. Deep in the heart of the abyss was a giant star that was blindingly bright, and seemed to consume all attention.

"…so what happened next?" asked Jimmy.

"So there we were, me and Dash, and he's cowering in fear of this dragon. And I say to him, "Get up, man! We've got to fight!" You know what he does? He actually stands up and shouts, "Let's do this!" Danny punched the air dramatically to add emphasis to his story. His cousin laughed, and it felt good to Danny to see this boy, who was so miserable an hour ago, in good spirits again.

Danny glanced over at Jimmy. "But I've got to say, you're friends sound like a real head case! I mean, creating a monkey-themed amusement park? A full-scale city made of cardboard? These "Eds" sound like a lot of fun!"

"Well," Jimmy murmured, "they can be a tad annoying."

"Yeah, but what friend isn't?"

"True."

The two stopped flying through the starry sky when Danny held out his hand. "This is as far as we go," he said. "If we go any further, we might get pulled into The Light."

"What's that?" asked a now curious Jimmy.

"The Light is…well, y'know how in movies, when people die, they talk about seeing a light? That's what this is: it's a light that beckons people into the beyond."

"What happens to them?"

"No one knows. All I know is that The Light is guarded by these freaks called the Beholders. They watch over everything, and they tell me when there's an emergency."

"Wow. For a sixteen-year-old, you sure have a lot of work to do!"

"You don't know the half of it. Now, we're not here to talk about my job; we're here to test out your powers."

"What should I do?"

"Just concentrate," said Danny as he moved over to a star. "Let's try the basic laser blast. Hold your hands out in front of you, and just imagine a beam of light bursting out of them." He demonstrated for his cousin by firing a green burst of light from his open palms.

Jimmy's jaw dropped. "I-I'll give it a try!" The small boy opened his palms and held them forward. He tried picturing a beam of light coming out of them, but he wasn't seeing anything, so he closed his eyes and imagined, as hard as he could, a white light surging out. Still, he could not feel anything different.

"Woah," shouted Danny, "watch it!" Jimmy opened his eyes and saw that his cousin had moved, and was giving him a shocked look. He looked down at his hands; they were glowing white. Had he actually managed to fire a laser?

"Danny, I didn't feel anything," he said.

"What are you talking about? You just shot a huge ball of light from your hands!"

"But…but was there supposed to be something happening to my body or anything?"

"Well, there should be a slight change…here, think of something else. Think of…an animal."

"Any animal?"

"Any animal."

Jimmy held his hands out again and concentrated. In his mind, he was picturing a gerbil, like the ones he drew in his pictures. He pictured its smooth fur, its black eyes, and its paws. Suddenly, a gerbil appeared in front of him, though the animal was composed of glowing white light. The light was coming from his hands, and seemed to be providing life to the small rodent. It squeaked happily and hovered up to Jimmy's face, gave him a nuzzle on the cheek, and then perched atop his head.

To say he was shocked was the least. "What did I just do, Danny?"

"I've seen this before," said Danny as he floated over to his cousin, "in my friend Tucker. See, Tucker has the power to make anything with his mind, and it looks like you have that power as well!"

"But what about the mind reading?" asked Jimmy.

"That's just something additional to help you. I mean, I've got more powers than Superman does, and that's saying something. Everybody develops differently, and you aren't an exception. Now, let's practice some more!"

"Cool!"

The two boys flew off deeper into the field of starlight, Jimmy conjuring up new things every few feet. For some reason, everything except the gerbil would vanish after each new light image appeared. Jimmy decided to question that later; for now, he had to practice with his powers. As they jetted through the stars, a strange buzzing reached Jimmy's ears. It sounded almost like words.

"Danny, hold on! I think I hear someone!"

"Where? There's no one in sight!"

"Hang on, let me focus!" Jimmy touched his hands to his head and shut his eyes. He began to hear a girl's screaming and a man's fiendish glee at said screaming.

_RRRRGHHHH! Nothing's working against this guy! I wish he would just shut up and let me beat him!_

_Hehehehehe, that's right, little one! Use all that power, you'll never be able to stop me! Soon, I'll have you in my collection of ghosts to experiment on!_

Jimmy screamed, "That was Sarah! We have to find her!"

"Can you track her down by reading her thoughts?" asked Danny.

"I…I think so! Judging by how loud they are in my head, they must be close by!"

Both ghostly boys flew forward until Danny stopped abruptly. He reached a hand out into the open space in front of him and discovered that there was a wall there. He turned his head to his cousin and said, "It looks like we'll be fazing in. You ready?"

"As I'll ever be!" Jimmy pumped his fists into the air, and the gerbil did the same thing. The little boy float over to the wall and imagined going through it, as if the wall were made of nothing but water. Sure enough, the skin and clothing on his arm turned invisible and he felt himself going through the invisible wall. His whole body vanished, and in just a second, he was on the other side, where he saw Sarah being beaten around by the same man who put him in the Ghost Zone in the first place: the fiendish Doctor Spektros.

Sarah was floating in the air on jets of fire. She was gripping her arm, which looked burnt, but she still had a fist filled with fire. Her eyes shimmered with the intense heat that was coming from them. In fact, her entire body had a golden aura about it, not unlike a powerful flame.

Spektros, on the other hand, hardly seemed to be hurt at all. His white hair was slightly singed, yes, but otherwise, he was fine. No broken bones, no hideous scars, not even a single burn mark on his chest. He was laughing like a madman and his hands were surrounded by a green ball of flames. It appeared that he was in the process of doing an incredibly bad thing.

"Sarah!" cried Jimmy. His friend tore her eyes away from Spektros and stared at Jimmy. Almost immediately, the flames were extinguished and replaced by tears of joy.

"Jimmy!"

The two children flew towards each other and hugged as hard as they could. Jimmy was fairly certain that Sarah broke one of his ribs, but he did not care. She was alive and he was alive; that was all that mattered.

"Aww, how sweet! The two young lovers are reunited at last!" Spektros smiled sadistically. "Unfortunately, neither of you are leaving here alive. And I must say, boy," he looked at Jimmy, "you have perfectly ruined my plans! Here I was, hoping to coax the explosive girl into The Light, and you have to come along and reveal that you aren't actually dead yet! This will not do!"

Sarah let go of Jimmy and pushed him away. "Stay out of this, Jimmy," she hissed, "this guy's too tough for you to handle."

"Let me help," he said to her, "I have mad skills!"

"What?!"

Before going any further, Danny moved the two kids apart. He told them, "Neither of you are strong enough to take him on. I'll handle him."

"How noble of you!" exclaimed Spektros. "It will be futile to keep the children from fighting, however. Behold!" He pressed a button on his wristwatch, and suddenly, a horde of Wild Beasts appeared beside him. Their jaws were gnashing insanely and red saliva dribbled from their mouths. Sarah and Jimmy shrieked at the mere sight of the creatures. The evil doctor began to giggle with madness.

"Hehehehehe! You'll be devoured here and now! Attack, my pretties!"

The creatures rocketed forward but were stopped by a green wall generated from Danny's hands. He turned back to Jimmy and Sarah. "I could take these guys down on my own. Jimmy, you should get Sarah out of here." Just then, the gerbil atop Jimmy's head began squeaking. It flew down from its perch and looked his creator in the eye.

"The gerbil," Jimmy said awkwardly, "the gerbil said that he could take down the Wild Beasts."

"How's a glowing gerbil going to help?" asked Sarah incredulously.

"I don't know, but I've seen crazier things in my life than this life. Jimmy, let the gerbil do his thing!" Danny dropped the shield and flew over the Wild Ones, tackling Spektros and throwing him into the wall of the room.

The gerbil hovered in front of Jimmy and began to chirp. "Sarah, are gerbils supposed to chirp?" Jimmy asked.

"I don't think- HOLY SPROCK!"

While Jimmy was not looking, the gerbil had grown to be the size of a delivery truck, easily overtaking the small band of piranhas. The gerbil let out a massive roar and gulped up most of the beasts in its giant mouth; the rest of the piranhas maneuvered around the gerbil. Sarah took care of these by blasting them with a stream of fire, followed by a battering ram summoned up by Jimmy. When the gerbil swallowed its meal, it spun around and scooped up the two children upon its head.

"Wow, Jimmy!" cried Sarah, "This is so cool!"

"I know!" he replied. "Ride, Snowbell! Ride!"

The gerbil reared back and nearly whinnied, like a massive horse, and sprinted through the invisible room. It shattered the walls of the room and destroyed the room. Jimmy and Sarah looked back and saw that Danny was following them. Spektros was slung over his shoulder.

***

After they made their way to a part of the Ghost Zone with land, Danny threw Spektros upon the ground. The young man then hovered down and punched the evil doctor in the head. This woke him up.

Spektros groaned and rubbed his head. "Owwww…you shouldn't do that! That's not the way to get information out of a prisoner."

"I just want to know one thing," said Danny. "How do I get these kids home?"

"This watch." Spektros removed the multi-functional wristwatch and threw it over to Jimmy. "It'll take you two right back to Berzerkystan. I think you should show up just in time to see the Demon King destroy the Earth."

"C'mon, Jimmy! We have to go!" Sarah pressed the first button on the wristwatch and the two children vanished away.

Before he disappeared, Jimmy exclaimed, "Thanks for all your help, Danny Phantom! Call me if you ever need my help!"

"Sure thing, kid!"

When the kids were gone, Spektros stood up. "Well, if my help is no longer required, I'll be searching for a way home!" He was thrown back to the ground by an angry Danny.

"I lied. Another thing: who gave the Wild Ones to you? 'Cause I know you're not smart enough to make those kinds of things on your own." Spektros grimaced. The jig was up.

He scratched his head. "Well, see, I can only give you a name…Plasmius."

"I knew it." Danny stripped Spektros of his power vest and flew off towards a more populated area of the Ghost Zone.

"This job just got a lot harder…"

***

_Will Jimmy and Sarah make it back in time? How will the gang react to Jimmy's not being dead?? Where is that Danny Phantom storyline going to go??? Tune in on the next exciting episode of _ED JUSTICE!!!


	10. 10: The Beginning is the Ed is the Begin

_A town destroyed…_

_An evil plot to destroy the world…_

_Death and chaos as far as the eye can see…_

_And not a single jawbreaker in sight…_

_ED JUSTICE: We know drama_

**Chapter 10: The Beginning is the ED is the Beginning**

Before Edd rescued Rolf from the clutches of Akuma, and before Sarah and Jimmy returned from the Ghost Zone, the children of Peach Creek had been involved in a brawl against the group of villains known as the Society of Sin, who had been responsible for the bombing of their hometown. The children found themselves to be evenly matched with their enemies in combat, but there was a sense in all of them to fight beyond their limits, to avenge the town, and to, as Ed so eloquently put it, beat the bad guys to a pulp and save the day. To that end, they fought with all their might…

***

Ed rocketed through the sky on legs of fire, trying to avoid the laser blasts that were being emitted from Energia, who was still giggling insanely after all this time. Since they had begun to fight, the two had not landed a clear hit on each other since their attacks were either blocked or flat-out missed. This was a problem for Ed, who was beginning to feel very tired and exhausted after having turned into most any substance he could think of. His cackling foe, on the other hand, was still going strong, and seemed to lack any limits in endurance. Every time that he shifted into a different state, Ed felt a twinge of pain. That twinge was becoming bigger and bigger, and it now physically hurt the boy when he altered his body. At the most, he figured he could change a few more times before the pain became too great.

"How does she do it?" Ed asked himself. "It's like she's made of pure energy!" Just then, a thought came to him. He smiled and exclaimed, "BOING!" and then flew down to the ground, where he ripped out a chunk of land and held it over his head.

"Monsieur Elemento," cooed Energia, "whatever are you doing?"

"I have figured out how to defeat you, nemesis!" shouted Ed as his body began to change once again. This time, instead of feeling a bone-tearing agony, a wave of cool air rushed through him, healing his tensed muscles and weary joints. His body was disintegrating into a red bolt of energy; when it was finished, Ed resembled a crimson, masculine copy of Energia. As if to imitate her further, Ed began to laugh uproariously, as he flew into the air to attack.

Energia giggled. "I see, monsieur," she said, "that you have the right idea. That will not do in this battle, I am afraid!!" She rocketed forward into a full frontal attack, meaning to end the fight in one blow. When she neared Ed, however, the red boy blasted right through her incorporeal form and zoomed past her.

"Hahaha!" he laughed. "This is so cool! I am like a lightning bolt!"

For a moment, Energia was at a loss for words. Then, like the living bolt of energy that she was, the blue girl charged after Ed, laughing as much as the hero. "It is most fun to fly like this, oui?" she asked, but Ed was too busy shooting through the air to pay attention.

"Monsieur," asked Energia, "are you listening to me?" Again, there was no response from Ed.

"PEW-PEW-PEW! I am a laser gun!" he cried as he shot red lightning from his fingertips.

Now, Energia was frustrated. Was this boy ignoring her? "This is unacceptable!" she shrieked as she let loose a salvo of lightning upon Ed's body. The red boy yelped in pain and spun around. He remembered what he had set out to do.

"You made my sister cry!" shouted Ed as he hurled a ball of crimson energy at Energia. She smirked and swatted it away, but when she touched it, she howled in pain and took the full force of it.

"Sacre bleu!" she screamed, "What is that?!"

"It is ANTI-MATTER LIGHTNING!" Ed exclaimed as red sparks crackled around him. "It is the only thing that can combat your lightning mano a mano!"

"O-ho, I see!" Energia's smile turned grim and she began to cackle wickedly. "Do you know what I do to people who hurt me, Monsieur Elemento?" she asked. Ed shook his head, suddenly nervous of the girl.

"I KILL THEM!" She flew straight at Ed and rammed her fist into his stomach, causing him to reel back in pain, but she then flew behind him and caught him in the back with her knee. This went on, back and forth, for some time, until Ed's laser body began to return to its original state.

Energia laughed cruelly. "Monsieur," she asked, "are you finished already? Have you had enough of my power?"

His body had almost completely returned to its purple and gold-flesh form, and all Ed could do was grunt in frustration. He knew that this girl could not be beaten by any regular means. To put an end to her dastardly plans, he would have to muster up the last of his shape-changing powers, but all he could do was change a single finger into anti-matter lightning.

"Do you…expect me to give up?" Ed grunted.

"No, Monsieur Elemento," Energia cackled, "I expect you to die. Any last words?"

"Yes…zappity-ZAP-ZAP!" Ed tapped his anti-lightning finger against Energia's head. The power ran straight through the girl, and she screamed for a moment and then was silent. As Ed hovered in the air, he saw the girl slowly begin to disintegrate. Before she completely vanished, her eyes popped open and she smiled weakly.

The blue girl said, "We simply must do this again sometime, monsieur. I had…fun." She broke apart after that, leaving nothing behind but blue sparks that filled the air around Ed. With his nemesis defeated, he could rest. Of course, there was still the problem of him lacking any energy left and he was quickly falling out of the sky, 10,000 feet up in the air.

"Hmm…" he mumbled, "I might be in a pickle…"

***

While Bonecrusher ran towards Eddy in the center of the hangar, the short boy was running towards a pile of steel I-beams. The spiky monster had roughed him up a good deal, but Eddy knew that if he could get his hands on the I-beams, he would be able to end the fight before he got hurt even further.

"I never thought I'd say this," he mumbled, "but thank Jeebas for plastic skin!"

"None talking from u, rubbr boi! Bonekrushr killz u!" screamed the monster as it leaped through the air. "Bonekrushr killz u all kindsssssss of dead!" It tackled Eddy and began to slash and tear at the boy's face, but to Eddy, it may as well have been giving him a few paper-cuts. During the assault, Eddy even began to laugh a little, despite the circumstances.

"Whatsssssss so funnies, rubbr boi?" growled Bonecrusher.

"I was just thinking about how I'm gonna kick your pasty, freaky monster butt!" shouted Eddy as he slipped his way out of Bonecrusher's grip. "And," he said, "I was also thinking about how I've been pushed around and gotten my butt handed to me fer long enough!" He twisted his lower body around the monster and caught him in a stranglehold with his legs.

"Can you feel that?" he asked the monster. "That's what a rubber boy who's been pushed around all his life can do!" Eddy then changed his hands so that they were the size of picnic blankets.

He shouted, "I'm gonna slap some sense into you!" and then he began to slap the blood-thirsty beast back and forth across the face relentlessly. The spikes in Bonecrusher's head were painful but that didn't matter to Eddy. The shooting pain his hands felt was nothing compared to what he felt when he saw what happened to Peach Creek, his beloved hometown.

Contrary to what most of the kids in the cul-de-sac believed, Eddy O'Brian actually did have a heart, and that heart belonged to money, more money, and Peach Creek. It was a special place for Eddy, even if he would never admit it: there was the corner where he pulled off his first scam, the bank where his mother had worked for a time, his father's car dealership, and the beloved candy store; Ratfink Street, where Eddy learned how to ride the bicycle his brother had given him, the junkyard where he and his friends had played, and the forest where Ed, Edd and he had gone off to in need of a hiding spot or scam. All of this was gone, and there was no way to replace it. Eddy needed something to vent on, and Bonecrusher's ugly mug provided the best option for that.

Suddenly, Bonecrusher began to shout and struggle against his restraints, causing Eddy no end of discomfort. "Letmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeout!" it screamed over and over again.

"What's that?" Eddy asked sarcastically. "Do you want out?"

"Yessssss! Letz Bonekrushr go!" howled the beast.

Eddy smirked and said, "Okay, have it your way!" He lifted his body off the ground with spring-like hands and began to swing back and forth. "I'm ready when you are!" he shouted to Bonecrusher. "One fer the money, two fer the show, three ta make ready, and four to GOOOOOO!" The boy heaved Bonecrushed across the room, straight into the other wall, where he left an imprint. With his enemy far away from him, Eddy was able to get to the I-beams once again.

He zoomed over to the I-beams and began to shift his body into an elaborate design. First, his arms stretched out so that he was about the size of a large trampoline, and then he elongated his arms and stretched them underneath the metal beams and, with proper leverage, found that he could lift one up. Then, Eddy stretched out the muscles in his eyes (a trick he had picked up from one of Ed's comic books) so that he could pick out Bonecrusher amidst all the chaos in the room. When he saw the beast coming towards him again, he grinned.

"That's perfect," he whispered, "just perfect!" When Bonecrusher drew closer, Eddy picked up the I-beam and pressed it against his body so that it was taught like a bow with an arrow. He grunted, "Smile, you son of a-" and then released the beam. It collided with Bonecrusher's head and threw the beast back through the air with a sickening KRUNCH! The monster landed against the cold floor of the hangar, quite unconscious.

Eddy's body returned to normal, and then he realized exactly how SORE he was. "Man," he groaned, "'think I pulled a muscle there!" Regardless, he stretched his body out once more and tied himself around Bonecrusher like a poorly-wrapped Christmas present.

"Well, my work is done," Eddy sighed. "I wish everyone'd hurry up here…"

***

Not too far away from Eddy's duel, Nazz and Rampage were going toe-to-toe, fist-to-fist, and head-to-head. Nazz had a slight advantage in her ability to fly, but Rampage worked around that by jumping into the air. With his freak strength and speed, he was practically flying all by himself. This infuriated Nazz and it made her lose hope in the fight. After all, how could she hope to defeat a foe that was just as strong as she was?

"Hey, you still want to go?" asked the lizard-man as he flicked away his cigarette. Since he and Nazz had begun fighting, Rampage had gone through five cigarettes, and Nazz had been unable to get rid of a single one. "Don't tell me that's all you got!"

Nazz growled and didn't respond. She just rocketed through the air towards her opponent, who leaped out of the way. Before she could stop, Nazz crashed right into the cavern floor, adding to her list of injuries. As she crawled off the floor, she wiped away the blood that dripped from her mouth.

"Again?" asked Rampage sarcastically. Nazz replied by spitting blood at his feet.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said as he ran behind Nazz in the blink of an eye and brought his knee down into her back. She felt her joints crack from the blow; she was sent reeling into a wall of machines.

Nazz began to push herself off the machines but was stopped by Rampage, who rammed her head down into the computers. The lizard-man pushed her down into the machines, causing sparks to fly out of them. In her struggling, Nazz got jabbed in the face by the parts of the computers but she couldn't scream even if she wanted to. The pain was greater than anything she had ever felt before.

Finally, Rampage pulled her out of the computers and held her up so he could get a look at her. Nazz's face was all scratched up, and some of her hair was burned by the sparks; there was glass stuck in her hair and one was even jammed into her face. One of her eyes had begun to swell up.

The villain smiled cruelly and asked, "So now what, princess? You gonna keep on fighting?"

Nazz gasped for air and replied, "I'll…I'll stop you, you ugly piece of-"

She was silenced by a slap to the face from Rampage, who was down-right angry now. His face lit up in fury as he shouted, "You think I ASKED to be like this?! HUH?!? It's all because of that Senator! He's the one that did this!"

While Rampage went on, Nazz began to formulate a plan in her head. She had spent some time in the woods the past week learning how to aim her heat-vision; if she were able to time it just right…

She asked Rampage, "Hey, lizard-man?" and he stopped talking.

"WHAT?!" he shouted furiously.

"Say cheese!" Nazz opened her eyes as much as she could and fired a bolt of red-hot light from the depths of her corneas that connected with Rampage's face. The man howled in agony and released Nazz, but she didn't stop there. She continued to attack as hard as she could, punching and kicking him endlessly.

"What's the matter, dude?" she asked sarcastically, "No witty banter? No snark? 'Cause that's fine by me!"

When Rampage began to fight back, Nazz backed down and let out a blast of frigid air that chilled the lizard-man to the bone. "If there's one thing I learned from biology class," she said, "it's that lizards are cold-blooded!" Rampage's black scales began to turn a strange shade of purple and frost began to form on his body. He was practically a popsicle when Nazz stopped.

She fell back against the computers and breathed deeply. As she lay there, she could feel the warm rays of the sun beating down on her. Her body felt like it was healing already. Her ears picked up the sound of something falling from the sky not too far from where she was. Sighing, she brushed the debris from her hair.

"This day just gets better and better," she murmured as she slowly flew through the air to catch whatever or whoever was falling.

***

In the blink of an eye, Puma Loco and a tired Kevin reappeared inside the hangar, where everything was, for them, still slowed down incredibly. The older Puma Loco brushed away some salt water that was on his beard and he grinned at Kevin.

"That was fun, no?" he asked as he whacked the boy across the back.

"Totally…man…" Kevin gasped as he regained his breath. He stood up straight and stretched his arms out, cracking a few joints in the process. "That was…awesome!"

"I liked the part with the giant squid!" Puma Loco exclaimed as he disappeared and reappeared, now holding a beer bottle in his hand.

"My favorite part was when we saw that freaky ice monster down in Antarctica," said Kevin. The boy looked over at the villain and told him, "Y'know, you're pretty cool for a villain and all."

"Gracias, amigo," said Puma Loco, "And you are an amazing young hero. You have a bright future ahead, I can tell."

"Thanks, dude." Kevin walked around the hangar for a few minutes, reacquainting himself with the feeling of standing still. After what happened to Peach Creek, he thought he would kill the first person he came across, but the red-headed boy learned that Puma Loco was not such a bad man after all. When they were training in the Sahara, Kevin had learned that Puma Loco had been trapped in various points in history for some time. When the villain had first touched the magical totem that gave him his powers, he had disappeared from Brazil in 1876 and found himself in Chicago in 1941. Since then, he was constantly shunted through the time stream at the beck and whim of the totem; even in his old age, Puma Loco was not entirely sure how to control the belt buckle.

Kevin thought to himself, "Man…that would suck if all you ever did was just time travel for no reason. Can't even imagine what it must be like."

While he walked around, Kevin began to notice that things were speeding up again and motion was being resumed. He turned to Puma Loco and said, "Hey, I guess we have to get back to fighting now, huh?" At least, that's what he WANTED to say.

Before he could even begin to finish the thought, Puma Loco had run behind Kevin and swatted the boy's neck with his hand, hitting a pressure point and knocking him unconscious.

"Sorry, boy," he said with the pride of a grizzled old man, "but you still have a way to go before you can even think of throwing a punch at me."

Puma Loco picked up Kevin's body and began to create pockets of air around his feet, so that he was walking on air. He gracefully ran through the hangar until he reached the very top, where he found the children's airship waiting. The old man hyper-accelerated the molecules in his and Kevin's bodies and vanished through the wall of the ship, and then he deposited the young boy into a seat.

"Duerma bien, mi hijo, y puédale tiene sueños agradables. Sus días de lucha sólo han empezado justo," the old man whispered.

He vanished out of the airship frowning, for he knew that what he said was a lie. Kevin would not have a bright future ahead of him, but rather, a life filled with trials of the most difficult kind. Heroes would hate him, villains would want him dead, his loved ones would be killed by his enemies, and there would be no respite.

Before Puma Loco vanished away completely, he ran down the dark corridors of the cavern that led to Akuma's sacrificial alter and found one Eddward Mardon and Rolf Heinrich stumbling down the corridor. Well, they would be stumbling if they were actually moving at more than half the speed of a snail. Puma Loco took a note that he had written during Kevin's training and stuck it into Eddward's pocket.

"You will thank me for this later, Kid Tempest," said Puma Loco as he brushed past Edd and Rolf. When he did this, the world returned to its normal speed, and the two boys continued their trek to their friends. They stopped when Edd touched his pocket.

"Why do we stop, Double-D-Ed-Boy?" asked Rolf.

"I think there's something in my pocket," said Edd as he pulled out a piece of yellow paper. He quickly read through it.

"Good lord, Rolf! Get a load of this!" he exclaimed as he showed the paper to Rolf.

***

Johnny and his opponent, Obelisk, stood far apart from each other, gripping their broken weapons in their hands. Plank was strapped to Johnny's back, his metal pipe having been dissolved by a bottle of acid. Johnny had broken another three ribs in the fight and he was fairly certain that the twitching he felt in his leg was from a sprained ankle. Four of his fingers were broken; this made holding onto a bo staff that much more difficult.

The opposition was not fairing much better. Though his entire body was cloaked, Johnny knew that he had at least broken Obelisk's left wrist with a spinning kick, and he had delivered a bone-crushing punch that he had learned from his cousin to the enemy's ribcage. For all his bravado, Obelisk had taken quite a beating at the hands of the eleven-year-old superhero, but it would take much more to defeat the chief servant of the dark lord Akuma.

"You…fight like a mad weasel," Obelisk hissed as he attempted to taunt his opponent. "Who taught you such pathetic fighting skills?"

"I learned them from my parents," said Johnny as he gripped his bo staff harder. "Plus my martial arts teacher, Chuckie Chan! You don't diss the CHUCK!" he shouted as he flipped through the air and whacked the remains of his bo staff against Obelisk's one good hand left.

Before his attack connected, Obelisk used his free hand, equipped with razor-sharp claws, to attack Johnny's arm, slicing it open. Both boy and man howled in pain, and both were left reeling from the other's attack. Johnny glared at Obelisk and he knew instantly that his body could only handle a little more. If he pushed himself too far, Johnny would collapse from the pain and be unable to fight. This last attack would be his last.

The two lined up, one's eyes keeping track of the other's movements. Obelisk gripped his right hand, which Johnny had just attacked, and popped the wrist back into its socket. Johnny twisted his neck and cracked the bones. Both started to run at each other, howling all the way, each holding their right fist ready for an attack.

KRRR-AAAACCCCCCCKKKKKK!

Johnny's blow was the one that connected first, due to his having slightly longer arms than Obelisk. The hooded man flew back into the stone wall of the hangar and collapsed, only slightly conscious. Johnny gripped his fist and stumbled over to Obelisk, who was breathing, though just barely.

"Y…You think…you've won…but you haven't…" wheezed Obelisk as he watched Johnny warily. "Lord Akuma…will surely…bring destruction…"

"You've said that before, and you kept saying it in the fight," scoffed Johnny, "but I haven't seen any fire or brimstone yet, so I think we're good."

Obelisk gagged. "How…how is a mere…child…able to do this?" he asked.

"Like I've said, I had help." Johnny pulled Plank from his back and smacked the villain across the head, saying, "Now go to sleep! You're boring me!"

Johnny seated himself on a rock nearby and held Plank up to his face. "Man, Plank!" he exclaimed, "Wait until Sensei hears about THIS!"

***

May was beginning to struggle against her opponent, Predator. Considering that she had just discovered her powers of telekinesis, the buck-toothed girl had no idea that the mental strain it put on her would be so great. At this point in the fight, her opponent had not even broken a sweat, while she was already gasping for breath. She hid behind a pile of oil drums, clutching her forehead.

"What's the matter?" asked the Predator. "You're slowing down."

"I'm…tired…" gasped May, "I…can't…go…on…"

"That's a shame," said the marksman, "because this just means that everyone here is going to die. Now, I'm feeling pretty good today, so I don't want to have to do that, but you're not giving me much of a choice."

"Why…are you…doing this?" May asked her opponent.

"Truth be told, I'd rather not work with these guys," the marksman replied. "See, I'm not big on the whole 'destroy the world' plan; it's stupid. Why destroy the world when it's so much better to rule it? That's my philosophy, and the League of Shadow's philosophy."

"League of Shadows?" May began to pay more attention to what the man was saying. "Who's that?"

"'Who AREN'T they?' is the better question, sweetheart," said the Predator. "The League controls so many things on this big ball of dirt. We've got agents all over the world; each and every one of them is trained and ready to take out the first 'super' that comes their way!"

As Predator was talking, May was flexing her fingers in preparation for what would basically be her last move in the fight. When she fought earlier, she found that smaller things were able to get close to the Predator; if she could shoot a pebble at him fast enough, she might just have a chance. If one thing went wrong, she and everyone else would be dead. And when she died, Lee would kick her butt for being a wussy.

"So, what's a super?" she asked.

"A 'super'," the Predator explained, "is basically a person with superpowers. And if one were to try and defy the League of Shadows, well, that would be the end for them. There wouldn't be a body for a funeral, nothing."

May decided that now was as good a time as any, so she ran out from behind the oil drums and created a force-field around her body. There was nothing in her hands, no weapon to be found, so what could she be planning?

The Predator sighed. "Don't tell me you're already giving up! We're just getting started!"

"Maybe you are," shouted May, "but I'm done! You've done nothing but act all cool and macho, even though you just destroyed my home! After you killed my SISTER! I'm not ever going to forgive you! So, here's some payback, Kanker-style!"

The tiny shards of metal, stone and glass rocketed off the floor and shot straight into Predator's face, some breaking through his goggles and smacking him in the face. May's assault continued, and now that she had found the one way to attack him, she was not going to stop until her opponent was finished.

Predator growled in pain and pressed a button on his glove. He held his hand out at May and let loose a stream of violet energy from the palm. The energy struck May dead-center in the face, and she screamed as she went flying to the ground. With May done with, Predator walked up to her; he was bleeding from the head, and a few drops fell from his helmet.

"Not bad," said the marksman, "but you've still got to control your power. Next time, you better be ready."

As he walked off, the man heard a beeping sound. He tapped the side of his helmet and asked, "Yeah, what is it?"

"Is the job done?" a deep voice asked him.

"Yeah, the mover-girl is out cold and the fight's starting to wrap up," he replied.

"Good. Return to headquarters for further instructions."

"Okay. See ya soon, Mom."

"Bye, sweetie."

The man tapped the side of his helmet again to silence the communication line. He turned his head back to May and gave her one last look before he ran outside of the cavern to his hoverbike. He was needed elsewhere.

***

Not far from where Ed and Energia were engaged in battle, Marie Kanker was caught in her own fight against the nefarious Dr. Navaros, also known as the villainess Heavy Metal. While Marie did not have a clear plan for the fight, she was doing very well, all things considered: she had managed to scratch up Navaros's armor, and Marie had only learned how to make her crystal bracelet work a mere hour ago.

_Okay, that's good_, said the voice in her head. _Now, make a shield…oh! Watch out for those missiles! Good, we dodged them! Thank goodness for increased agility, am I right? Ha-ha!_

"Would you shut up?!" Marie shouted as she blocked a laser blast from Heavy Metal with her bracelet.

"I didn't say anything," scoffed Navaros. "Are you losing your mind?"

"No, it's this stupid bracelet," sighed Marie. "Of all the voices it had to pick, it just had to be my dad's."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"When your father is as helpful and overly cautious as mine, it is."

"Ouch, tough break," replied Navaros. "By the way, there's been something I've been meaning to ask."

"What?"

"How did you know I knew how to make a robot body?" the older woman asked.

Marie smirked. "As much as my sisters will tell you, I ain't stupid. I know my way around machines, so I pick up some mechanic's magazines sometimes. When I saw that article about you and your experiments, I thought it was too unreal, but here I am, talking to you and you're fighting in an Iron Man costume. My point is I knew all about what you could do. You're a pretty hip lady."

"Marie," Navaros laughed, "I'm much more dangerous than you think. Why, I've got enough weapons in here to destroy a third-world country."

"Then why haven't you?" asked a cocky Marie.

Navaros growled and did not respond. She launched more lasers from her gloves, and Marie continued to either dodge them or deflect them, the voice of the bracelet becoming excessively annoying.

_It looks like you're trying to stop a super-villain_, said the bracelet. _Do you need any help?_

_No!_ Marie shrieked in her head. _God, you're like that freaking computer we've got at home…_

After a time, Marie began to grow bored with the fight, so she shouted at Navaros, "You want to give up yet, H.M.?"

"I won't give up," the villainess replied. "You are a disgrace to women everywhere!"

"Please, would you let that go?" asked Marie. "Not everyone's a freakin' feminist like you."

"How can you expect to get anywhere in this world ruled by men?" the doctor asked, her face becoming darker by the second. "How can you expect to—" Her question was cut off by Marie, who disappeared into a ring of crystals and reappeared behind Navaros and hit in hard in the back of the head.

"—Expect to what? Geez, you're really annoying, y'know that?"

Marie created a platform of crystal and carried Navaros and herself back down to the ground, where she created three bands of crystal around the woman. Bored, she scanned the area with her eyes: that weird kid, Johnny, was pacing around nearby; Kevin, that hot jerk, was nowhere to be found; that blonde bimbo Nazz was carrying May's husband.

"Where the heck is May?" she asked herself.

_Isn't that her against the far wall?_

"Yeah, that's her! Y'know, you ain't so bad."

_Well, I do try my hardest to please!_

***

By the time Edd and Rolf made it back to the hangar, Nazz and Marie were helping Ed and May, respectively, back to the main area, while Johnny slowly stumbled over with Eddy. Sarah and Kevin were unaccounted for.

"Is everyone okay?" asked Edd. "Where are Sarah and Kevin?"

"We're in one piece, Double D," said a weary Nazz. "That's what counts, right?"

Marie growled and shouted, "Yeah, well, I ain't got a scratch on me!"

Edd sighed. He did not want to put up with Marie's obsession. "We need to look for Sarah and Kevin!"

Two high-pitched voices exclaimed, "No need, Double D!" From out of the shadows came Sarah, Kevin, and a boy with black hair who looked somewhat familiar. Kevin was unconscious.

"Sarah, thank goodness you're all right!" Nazz said as she wrapped an arm around the red-head. "But who's the kid with black hair?" She stared intently at the boy, and the child, who seemed the same age as Sarah, seemed frustrated by this.

"Geez, Nazz, don't you recognize me?" he said in a familiar voice. "It's me, Jimmy!"

"Jimmy?" asked a surprised Nazz.

"Who?" asked Marie.

"But…Jimmy died!" exclaimed Edd.

"And you look nothing like Poofy-haired Jimmy-Boy!" said Rolf.

"You guys, it's me!" To prove himself, Jimmy summoned up a pair of yellow rings that circled around his body until he changed back to his regular self, sans retainer. He really was the same old Jimmy: same curly hair, same pale skin, same blue eyes, same…

"Jimmy, please cover yourself up!" shouted Edd as he averted his eyes. Jimmy blushed heavily and hid behind Kevin. He had completely forgotten that his clothes had been eradicated when he died.

Edd tried to calm down all his friends, who were now laughing hard, though try as he might, he couldn't help but chuckle a little. It felt good to laugh again, after what they had just gone through. At last, he said, "Johnny, take Ed's coat and give it to Jimmy, please." He snickered and threw the coat over to his friend, who wrapped it around his tiny body.

"Jimmy, where did you go?" asked Nazz.

"Well, I died…but then I got better!" he said happily. "I met Inviso- I mean Danny Phantom, and we had this huge fight and I fought these monsters with Sarah and Danny and we kicked butt with my giant gerbil and we had a lot of fun and then we got back her and Sarah wanted to show me the ship you guys came in so we went there and we found Kevin and he was sitting in a chair so we brought him down here with us!"

Edd, Rolf, Nazz, and Marie all looked at each other, wondering if anyone else was able to understand what Jimmy just said. When this did not happen, Sarah sighed and asked, "We did a bunch of stuff, guys, now what should we do with Kevin?"

"Rolf shall take him!" said the blue haired son of a shepherd. Rolf took Kevin from Sarah and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Edd grimaced but said nothing until he saw the blood oozing from Rolf's shoulder.

"Rolf, you're bleeding!" he exclaimed.

"This is nothing, Edd-Boy! Rolf was trained to do better than this!" shouted Rolf as he beat his fist upon his chest.

"Double D, what's that paper you've got?" asked Marie.

The brainy boy looked down and remembered that he had something very important to tell the group. "That's right, I have something I need you all to see. But I need everyone to see this, so let's get up into the Iron Bird and head back to Peach Creek."

As they walked back to the ship, Johnny asked, "Hey, Double D, what happened to Akuma?"

"We won't be seeing him for a long time, Johnny," replied a confident Edd. "Let's just say there was some miscommunication between him and his boss."

Marie scooted over to Edd and asked him, "Say, cutie-pie, what do you know about robots?"

"A good deal, I suppose," he replied. "Why?"

"How's your metal-working?"

"Fine. Why?"

"What about design? Are ya good with design?"

"Marie, what in heaven's name are you asking for?"

"Nothing," she said with a smirk. "You might want to look for a computer when we get back home. Check your e-mail." With that, she walked off smiling, leaving behind a very confused Edd.

***

Once everyone was aboard the Iron Bird, Edd walked over to the controls, hit the ignition button, and reset the tracker so that it was searching for Rolf's family in Peach Creek. When the Bird began to move, he went back to the seats, where he placed his body next to Eddy, who was reclined as far as the chair could go.

"Eddy, you're being unusually quiet," noted Edd.

"You would too…if you stretched your body out like a trampoline…twenty times in one day…" groaned Eddy. "Too sore…keep talking…I'll listen…maybe…"

"Well, I expect that is the most I'll get out of you. Is everyone awake yet?" He looked around. Kevin was just waking up, and it seemed that May was coming to.

"BIG ED!" shouted the blonde-haired Kanker sister as she lunged at her boyfriend, who had just woken up.

"AAAAAAHH!" screamed Ed. "KANKER!"

Edd put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, getting everyone's attention again. "Everyone, we've managed to do something impossible here. We have found the villains responsible for destroying Peach Creek and brought them to justice. We rescued our friend and saved the world in the process. Now, I have here this note that was stuck in my pocket. It reads…"

_Your future is filled with struggles like this._

_People will live, people will die._

_Will you fight?_

"That's some deep stuff, man," Kevin said sarcastically; Nazz lightly whapped him on the head in response.

"What we've seen today," Edd said, undaunted by Kevin, "is something I thought was impossible. I couldn't believe that there could be actual supervillains out there in the world, plotting things like this. A week ago, Ed, Eddy, Nazz, Kevin, and I all acquired powers of the most fantastic nature. I want to protect the world from these kinds of things from happening.

"As such, I want to form a team of some kind with everyone here. With our combined might, there should be no one that we cannot defeat, no foe too daunting. Ed suggested to me just yesterday that we form a team; I thought it was a silly idea because there were only us five who had powers. Who was there to fight?

"Right here, right now, whoever wants to help save the world, put your hand in." Edd stuck his hand out into the aisle between all the chairs. "We can save this planet. All it takes is a 'yes' or 'no'."

All the children looked back and forth between each other. Could they really be heroes? Could they save the world? For some, it was an easy question, for others, not so much. Ed and Eddy were the first ones to stick their hands in.

"We're with ya one hundred percent, Double D!" Eddy exclaimed.

"I am a SUPERHERO!" Ed shouted.

May and Marie joined their 'boyfriends' next, each one smiling at the thought of being famous and wearing glamorous costumes.

"Let's fight crime!" said May.

"Truth, justice, and our way!" Marie cheered as she pumped her fist in the air.

All at once, Rolf, Johnny, Sarah, and Jimmy all put their hands into the pile. Each and every one of them had eager faces that could brighten any darkness.

"This is what Rolf's ancestors would want!"

"Plank says it's a great idea!"

"Let's do this!" screamed Sarah and Jimmy together.

This left Kevin and Nazz. Nazz looked at Kevin and couldn't help but smile. "Doesn't this look familiar?" she asked her friend.

He replied, "Yeah, but this time I wanna, y'know, give it a shot. See how it all works out."

The two of them both stuck their hands in. Edd felt prouder than he ever had before in his life. They just might be able to save the world. Together.

"Then it's settled," he said. "We're all going to be superheroes." He was met with nods all around.

"Is it too soon to start talking names?" asked Ed. "'Cause I got a really good one; the Super Squadron!" The name received some laughter, but everyone agreed that it fit for what they were trying to accomplish.

Everyone cheered together, "SUPER SQUADRON!" and they threw their hands into the air. They all crashed down into their seats, laughing and feeling good for the first time in what felt like forever.

***

_The battle against the Society has come to a conclusion, and the children are returning home to Peach Creek. Life has changed forever for the kids. Will the Super Squadron last? Next time on _Ed Justice_: Edd performs a life-saving operation, Kevin shows off, and Jimmy inducts his gerbil into the Urban Rangers! All this and more, next time on _ED JUSTICE!

(Ed Justice will be taking a short hiatus so that the writer may work on other projects. Peace out.)


End file.
